Thermoplastic-based polymers are gathering importance in several engineering fields like electrical, electronic, automotive, aerospace, and structural. The additions of secondary phase reinforcements such as natural synthetic fibre improve thermoplastic-based polymer’s properties. thermoplastic combinations found to have low mechanical strength incompatibility need special treatment for synthes...

Schlieren interferometry is found to be an alternative tool for temperature measurement during thermoplastic laser welding with regard to methods based on thermocouples or optical pyrometers. In fact, these techniques are not easily applied when materials to be processed have reduced thickness, negligible heat conduction, and low emissivity, as is the case of welding high-density polyethylene f...

In the context of modern engineering practice, this paper describes the exploitation of thermoplastic materials for the provision of lightweight, low cost, corrosion free, alignment devices for lower limb prostheses. After setting out design requirements, four newly developed devices are described and discussed. These are respectively a four jack system, a serrated wedge system, a spherical ali...

Thermoplastic rubbers are materials that combine the characteristics of good processability of thermoplastics with the physical properties of vulcanized rubber. SEBS is a SBS which has been subjected to a hydrogenation process, through the polybutadiene chain is eliminated. This new rubber has a high resistance to environment, temperature, UV radiation, etc. without losing the properties of a t...

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is used to study the phase separation process occurring in block copolymers in the solid state. The simultaneous measurement of the amplitude and the phase of the oscillating cantilever in the tapping mode operation provides the surface topography along with the cartography of the microdomains of different mechanical properties. This technique thus allows to charac...

This paper presents one of the soft computing methods, specifically the artificial neural network technique, that has been used to model the temperature dependence of dynamic mechanical properties and visco-elastic behavior of widely exploited thermoplastic polyurethane over the wide range of temperatures. It is very complex and commonly a highly non-linear problem with no easy analytical metho...

Deterioration of bridges in the United States has been well recognized. According to the FHWA National Bridge Inventory, one third of nearly 600,000 U.S. highway bridges are classified as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Since the majority of bridges were built using wood, steel or concrete, the same conventional materials have been used for bridge replacement or rehabilitation,...

Polyamide-66(PA66)/CaCO3 micro- and nano-composites were prepared using a polymer solution method at filler loading of 0, 1, 2 and 3 weight percent. Nano-size of CaCO3 was synthesized by micro-emulsion technique. The material was characterized by XRD, SEM, FTIR and UV-VIS techniques. XRD results of composites suggested that CaCO3 particles are found in the amorphous phase of the semi-crystallin...