The continually growing plastics market consists of more than 250 million tons of product annually, making the recurring problem of polymer melt fracture an acute issue in the extrusion of these materials. Presenting a pictorial library of the different forms of melt fracture and real industrial extrusion melt fracture phenomena, Polymer Melt Fract

Polymer Processing Instabilities: Control and Understanding offers a practical understanding of the various flows that occur during the processing of polymer melts. The book pays particular attention to flow instabilities that affect the rate of production and the methods used to prevent and eliminate flow instabilities in order to increase product

My heart sank when I was approached by Dr Hastings and by Professor Briggs (Senior Editor of Materials Science and Technology and Series Editor of Polymer Science and Technology Series at Chapman & Hall, respectively) to edit a book with the provisional title Handbook of Poly propylene. My reluctance was due to the fact that my former book [1] along with that of Moore [2], issued in the meantime, seemed to cover the information demand on polypropylene and related systems. Encour aged, however, by some colleagues (the new generation of scientists and engineers needs a good reference book with easy information retrieval, and the development with metallocene catalysts deserves a new update!), I started on this venture. Having some experience with polypropylene systems and being aware of the current literature, it was easy to settle the titles for the book chapters and also to select and approach the most suitable potential contributors. Fortunately, many of my first-choice authors accepted the invitation to contribute. Like all editors of multi-author volumes, I recognize that obtaining contributors follows an S-type curve of asymptotic saturation when the number of willing contributors is plotted as a function of time. The saturation point is, however, never reached and as a consequence, Dear Reader, you will also find some topics of some relevance which are not explicitly treated in this book (but, believe me, I have considered them).

A comprehensive encyclopaedic dictionary on polymer technology with expanded entries - trade name and trade marks, list of abbreviations and property tables.

From the Introduction PVT data consists of records of the specific volume of a material (or its inverse, the density) as a function of pressure and temperature. There are many reasons why the specific volume of a material will undergo changes: changes in the temperature and pressure (thermal expansion and compression), phase changes (solid-solid phase transitions, melting, crystallization, glass transitions, mesophase transitions), degradation reactions, and many more. Conversely, PVT measurements can be used to study these phenomena and also to yield derivative data of direct importance to engineering applications of materials (compressibility, bulk modulus, thermal expansivity, etc.). PVT methods are part of a wide array of thermoanalytical techniques available to scientists and engineers, but PVT is the only commonly practiced technique that includes pressure as a variable. Polymers are sensitive to pressure: the volume itself, the pressure dependence of transition temperatures, and the kinetics of phase transitions are all significant, not only from a scientific point of view, but also for practical applications in polymer engineering, such as processing. Now published. This unique polymer reference book will be useful to all those involved in polymer research and advanced engineering. The more than 350 tables and graphs provide a wealth of important data in easy-to-use form. The introductory chapter provides details on methodology, equipment use, and information on the many ways in which PVT data can be used in research and engineering.

An analysis of polymer and composite rheology. This second edition covers flow properties of thermoplastic and thermoset polymers, and general principles and applications of all phases of polymer rheology, with new chapters on the rheology of particulate and fibre composites. It also includes new and expanded detail on polymer blends and emulsions, foams, reacting systems, and flow through porous media as well as composite processing operations.