The Mechanical Properties of Polymer Glasses

Polymer glasses are widely used in the container, appliance, construction, aerospace, and automobile industries in the form of compression or injection molded parts, solvent cast films, extruded films, coatings, adhesives, and composites. The increasing use of polymeric glasses in extreme service environments, particularly in the aerospace industry, requires a knowledge of their lifetime in such environments. To predict the lifetime of polymeric glasses in a service environment requires knowledge of: (1) details of the particular environment, (2) the nature of the failure processes, (3) the effect of the failure processes on the mechanical properties, (4) the structural parameters affecting the failure processes, and (5) how these structural parameters are modified by fabrication procedures and the service environment.