Application of Fracture Mechanics to Polymers, Adhesives and Composites

This book is an overview of ESIS Technical Committee 4's activities since the mid-1980s. A wide range of tests is described and the numerous authors is a reflection of the wide and enthusiastic support we have had. With the establishment of the Technical Committee 4, two major areas were identified as appropriate for the activity. Firstly there was an urgent need for standard, fracture mechanics based, test methods to be designed for polymers and composites. A good deal of academic work had been done, but the usefulness to industry was limited by the lack of agreed standards. Secondly there was a perceived need to explore the use of such data in the design of plastic parts. Some modest efforts were made in early meetings to explore this, but little progress was made. In contrast things moved along briskly in the standards work and this has dominated the activity for the last fourteen years. The design issue remains a future goal.

This book contains a selection of fully peer-reviewed papers which were presented at the 2nd ESIS TC4 Conference, held in Les Diablerets, Switzerland 13 - 15 September 1999. The meeting was designed to reflect the activities of the Committee over the last 15 years, and to plan future activities. The papers have been divided into four chapters under the headings of Composites, Elastic-Plastic Fracture, Adhesion, and Impact and General Fracture. These are convenient groupings, but there are many interactions between the areas, with the common theme of Fracture Mechanics underlying it all.

Fracture of Polymers, Composites and Adhesives II

This multiauthor volume provides a useful summary of current knowledge on the application of fracture mechanics to composite materials. It has been written to fill the gap between the literature on fundamental principles of fracture mechanics and the special publications on the fracture properties of conventional materials, such as metals, polymers and ceramics. The data are represented in the form of about 420 figures (including diagrams, schematics and photographs) and 80 tables. The author index covers more than 500 references, and the subject index more than 1000 key words.

Science and Engineering of Short Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites, Second Edition, provides the latest information on the ‘short fiber reinforced composites' (SFRP) that have found extensive applications in automobiles, business machines, durable consumer items, sporting goods and electrical industries due to their low cost, easy processing and superior mechanical properties over parent polymers. This updated edition presents new developments in this field of research and includes new chapters on electrical conductivity, structural monitoring, functional properties, self-healing, finite element method techniques, multi-scale SFRCs, and both modern computational and process engineering methods. Reviews the mechanical properties and functions of short fiber reinforced polymer composites (SFRP) Examines recent developments in the fundamental mechanisms of SFRP's Assesses major factors affecting mechanical performance, such as stress transfer and strength Includes new chapters on electrical conductivity, structural monitoring, functional properties, self-healing, finite element method techniques, multi-scale SFRCs, modern computational methods, and process engineering methods

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.