As the shift from the Metal Age progresses, materials engineers and materials scientists seek new analytical and design methods to create stronger and more reliable materials. Based on extensive research and developmental work done at the author’s multi-disciplinary material laboratory, this graduate-level and professional reference addresses the relationship between fracture mechanisms (macroscale) and the microscopic, with the goal of explaining macroscopic fracture behavior based on a microscopic fracture mechanism. A careful fusion of mechanics and materials science, this text and monograph systematically considers an array of materials, from metals through ceramics and polymers, and demonstrates lab-tested strategies to develop desirable high-temperature materials for technological applications.

A physical, mechanism-based presentation of the plasticity and fracture of polymers, covering industrial scale applications through to nanoscale biofluidic devices.

This book gives an overview of recent advances in the fracture mechanics of polymers, morphology property correlations, hybrid methods for polymer testing and polymer diagnostics, and biocompatible materials and medical prostheses, as well as application examples and limits.

Within the last two decades fracture theory has been one of the most rapidly advancing fields of continuous media mechanics. Noteworthy suc cess has been achieved in linear fracture mechanics where the propagation of the macrocrack in elastic materials is under study. However, fracture of materials is by no means a simple process since it involves fracture of structural elements ranging from atomic sizes to macrocracks. To obtain all information about how and why materials fail, all stages of the process must be studied. For a long time both mechanical engineers and physicists have been concerned with the problem of the fracture of solids. Unfortunately, most of their work has been independent of the others. To solve the problem not only requires the minds and work of mechanical engineers and physicists but chemists and other specialists must be consulted as well. In this book we will consider some conclusions of the "physical" and "mechanical" schools acquired by the A. F. Joffe Physics-Technical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad and the Institute of Polymer Mechanics of Latvian SSR Academy of Sciences in Riga. The methods for studying the phenomena of fracture applied at both Institutes are different yet complimentary to one another; the materials tested are also sometimes different.

This book on "Polymer Fracture" might as well have been called "Kinetic Theory of Polymer Fracture". The term "kinetic theory", however, needs some de finition or, at least, some explanation. A kinetic theory deals with and particu larly considers the effect of the existence and discrete size, of the motion and of the physical properties of molecules on the macroscopic behavior of an ensemble, gaseous or other. A kinetic theory of strength does have to consider additional aspects such as elastic and anelastic deformations, chemical and physical reactions, and the sequence and distribution of different disintegration steps. In the last fifteen years considerable progress has been made in the latter do mains. The deformation and rupture of molecular chains, crystals, and morphologi cal structures have been intensively investigated. The understanding of the effect of those processes on the strength of polymeric materials has especially been furthered by the development and application of spectroscopical methods (ESR, IR) and of the tools offracture mechanics. It is the aim of this book to relate the conventional and successful statistical, parametrical, and continuum mechanical treatment of fracture phenomena to new results on the behavior of highly stressed molecular chains.

Treatise on Materials Science and Technology, Volume 10: Properties of Solid Polymeric Materials, Part B covers knowledge in critical areas of polymeric materials. The book discusses the anisotropie elastic behavior of crystalline polymers; the mechanical properties of glassy polymers; and the fatigue behavior of engineering polymers. The text also describes the electronic properties of polymers; electric breakdown in polymers; and environmental degradation. People working in some area of polymer materials science will find the book useful.