Keynote paper of Composites Manufacturing Technology Symposium 6, Polymer Processing Society 9th Annual Meeting, UMIST, 5th-8th April 1993.

S F Bush

Introduction

The ultimate test of a polymer composite artefact is its entry into commercial production. It is the combination of material properties, geometrical design and manufacturing cost, not any of these separately, which will determine whether this occurs, or, having entered production will stay there.

Polymer products cannot, however, in general be defined in the way their precursor chemical monomers are, by a chemical structure, but only by effects, so that no one process either converting a monomer to a polymer, or a polymer into a solid artefact, is quite like another. More importantly, the effects specified can usually be obtained by several polymeric materials as well as possibly by metals and ceramics. An example is a pipe which can be achieved by man-made polymers, natural polymers, (e.g. wood), metals and ceramics (clays and cements), while the effects demanded may include mechanical, chemical, electrical properties, ease of installation, demountability and so on. Ultimately a polymer product provides a benefit to the customer at a cost which represents the full cost of the pathway from the feedstocks available and feedstocks themselves.

In the design of polymer product and process combinations, cost is thus an absolutely central consideration, every bit as important as material properties and thermodynamics, and without which consideration no sense can be made of the choices made by industry and no realistic view possible of the needs and opportunities for industry-linked research and innovation (Ref 1).

References

[1] R Malpas, Phil Trans Royal Society, London, A322 347-360 (1987)

[2] S F Bush, Development of new processes for the volume production of polymer composite artefacts, I Mech E Conf, Fibre Reinforced Composites, C400/029 237-243 (1990)

See also section on Systems Design & Control.