Polymer materials are all around you - in your home, cellular phone, MP3 player, computer, car, watercraft, and aircraft. They comprise high-performance sports equipment from skis and snowboards to tennis racquets, golf clubs, and bicycles. Heart stents and artificial joints are made from body-friendly polymer materials. Polymers form plastics and have been called the "materials of the century."
Although polymers have been around since the beginning of time, their commercial application and associated research is only about 50 years old. There is much to be discovered about their properties and uses. Polymer molecules form materials of all kinds, including plastics, adhesives, elastomers (rubber), fibers, films, membranes, and surface coatings (paints). Research is expanding these applications through the development of new high performance polymers.
What do polymer and fiber engineers do?
Polymer and fiber engineers are involved in developing and producing high performance materials that rely on polymers and fibrous materials. They work in a variety of areas, including research and development, product development, composite engineering, materials engineering, process engineering, and quality engineering.
Where will I work?
There are job opportunities for polymer and fiber engineers all over the U.S. Our job placement rates are remarkably steady due comparatively small numbers of graduates and the variety of jobs they are prepared for. Most graduates are working or attending graduate school shortly after graduation.
How much do graduates earn?
Our B.S. graduates earn salaries consistent with the national averages for their majors, about average for all engineering majors.
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Year |
PFE entry-level salaries |
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2008 |
$50,000 - $60,000 |
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2007 |
Low - Mid $50's |
What are polymers?
The most simple definition of a polymer is something made of many units. Think
of 
a polymer as a chain. Each link of the chain is the "-mer" or basic unit that
is usually made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and/or silicon. To make the chain,
many links or "-mers" are hooked or polymerized together. Polymerization can be
demonstrated by linking countless strips of construction paper together to make
paper garlands or hooking together hundreds of paper clips to form chains, or
by a string of beads.*
*Thanks to www.plasticsresource.com/ 
There are both naturally occurring and synthetic polymers. Among naturally occurring polymers are proteins, starches, cellulose, and latex. Synthetic polymers are produced commercially on a very large scale and have a wide range of properties and uses. The materials commonly called plastics are all synthetic polymers.
Learn more about plastics at www.plasticsresource.com.
Scientists and engineers are always producing better materials by manipulating the molecular structure that affects the final polymer produced. Manufacturers and processors introduce various fillers, reinforcements and additives into the base polymers, expanding product possibilities.
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Biomedical mesh |
Generally speaking it's a polymer that comes from a non-petrochemical source. It's commonly used to describe biologically compatible polymers used in medical functions or polymers that occur naturally. The term is also used to describe materials like bioplastics, i.e. plastics that are manufactured from a plant source, which can then be used in the place of 'regular' plastics, for example in packaging, electronics or automotive materials. Bioplastics are sometimes claimed to be 'more biodegradable' than some established petrochemical-based biodegradable polymers.*
*Thanks to www.rapra.net
Polymeric materials are known for their unusual mechanical capabilities, usually exploited as components of structural systems. Structural polymers can be substituted for traditional materials including stone, glass and metal, and give superior performance. The primary function of the polymer industry has been to assist other industries and manufacturers in improving their products or reducing their costs through new engineered polymeric materials. The possibilities are limitless for composites, biomedical, industrial, and safety materials, and countless other uses.
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AU fuel cell research model |
New technologies often require special materials with certain physical properties or design characteristics. Polymeric materials can be engineered to yield the best performance under specified conditions. Examples include permselective membranes for use in kidney dialysis; polymers that are stable at high temperatures for fire-retardant construction materials; high-strength nonreactive polymers for use as biological implants; or reactive polymers for chemical and physical sensors.
Researchers are developing polymers with unique properties, including proton or electron-conduction, photoluminescent, or optical switching characteristics. These are the key to future applications in fuel cells, as sensors, or molecular computers.
This is the broad area of polymer analysis, which seeks to relate the structure of the polymer at the molecular level to the properties that determine its actual or potential applications. This includes characterization of polymers by infrared, Raman, and NMR spectroscopy, thermal analysis determination of structure and morphology by x-rays and electron microscopy, and investigation of molecular weights and conformation by light scattering.
Analysis includes the study of viscoelastic behavior, yielding and fracture phenomena and a variety of novel irreversible deformation processes.
**Composite materials (or composites for short) are engineered materials made from two or more constituent materials that remain separate and distinct on a macroscopic level while forming a single component.
The most primitive composite materials comprised straw and mud in the form of bricks for building construction. The ancient brick-making process can still be seen on Egyptian tomb paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The most advanced examples perform routinely on spacecraft in demanding
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Fiberglass tub |
The emerging field of tissue engineering has several enabling technologies, one of them is composite materials. Much success has been achieved with a composite comprising a bioactive reinforcement material such as hydroxyapatite and a biodegradable matrix such as polylactic acid.
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Exposed Reinforcement Fibers |
Composites are made from matrix and reinforcement materials. At least one component of each type is required. The matrix material surrounds and supports the reinforcement material(s) by maintaining their relative positions. The reinforcements impart special physical (mechanical and electrical) properties to enhance the matrix properties. A synergism produces material properties unavailable from naturally occurring materials. Due to the wide variety of matrix and reinforcement materials available, the design potential is incredible.
***Modern composites owe their existence to the aerospace industry, where lightness rules. Because heavy airplanes can't carry much payload, you'll find more aluminum planes than lead ones. Carbon fiber, the ultimate high-tech composite, is sometimes called "black aluminum" because it works like aluminum -- but weighs about 25 percent less.
Strengths of composite materials:
Compressive strength resists squashing. It's what prevents football linemen from getting crushed in those lovely pile-ups.
The ideal material would combine each type of strength, but in the real world, it's usually easier to join several materials to get the needed strength. In the original composite material (brick), dried earth gave compressive strength, and straw gave tensile strength.
Matters change slightly in fiberglass, a more advanced composite that bonds glass fibers in plastic to make light boats and cars. The fibers have both compressive and tensile strength, but they can supply compressive strength only when held tightly in the plastic.
Advanced composites are stronger, lighter, easier to engineer, and more resistant to fatigue. They do not expand or contract when temperature changes, which is important in airplanes that may sit on a tropical runway one minute, and fly in the subzero stratosphere 10 minutes later. Last -- and this can be crucial -- composites don't corrode.
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B-2 Stealth bomber's radar absorbant material (RAM) is carbon composite |
The matrix, generally a polymer or epoxy, acts like an adhesive to hold the fibers together. The matrix must also resist degradation and protect reinforcement fibers from the environment.
***Courtesy University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, http://whyfiles.org/145composite_materials/
Fiber reinforced polymers are composed of three basic components: resin, reinforcement, and additives. Resins are the "glue" that bonds the composite together. A large variety of materials are capable of serving as reinforcement for FRPs. Reinforcement materials can be natural, like wood chips, or man-made, like nylon or glass-fibers.
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Glass Fibers |
The majority of reinforcing materials are man-made, and glass fibers are the most commonly used. Other materials used are carbon or graphite fibers, aramid, kevlar, nylon, or polyester. Even more specialized, usually employed for their high strength and ability to withstand high heat, are metals and metal oxides such as titanium. Ceramics and other high-technology materials, including nano-particle based compounds, are also increasingly used in composites.
In addition to fiber reinforcements, many composites contain materials called cores or fillers. These materials allow for increased strength and functionality while only marginally increasing the weight of the material.
Cores are often employed in a sandwich-type design where the core material is enclosed between layers of so-called skin materials. After bonding the core to the skin with an adhesive, the resulting sandwich performs as one unit.
Filler materials are used to reduced cost and improve performance of some composite materials. Fillers can provide water resistance, weathering, surface smoothing, stiffness, dimensional stability, temperature resistance, or flame/smoke performance.
Additives perform a variety of functions, including surface smoothing and reducing resin-shrink, increasing fire resistance, reducing the amount of trapped air within the composite, suppressing emissions, and viscosity control. Other additives increase electrical conductivity of the composite (also used to allow for electromagnetic interference shielding), inhibit oxidization of the polymer, reduce static buildup, and provide surface lubrication.
Each component is chosen based on the end-use requirements. For example, phenolic resins are often used for their fire retardancy properties, while carbon fiber reinforcements are used when weight must be at an absolute minimum.
^Thanks to http://www.advancedmaterialsnc.org/materials/
Fiber or fibre is a class of materials that are continuous filaments or are in discrete elongated pieces, similar to lengths of thread. Fibers are structures with an extremely large ratio of length to width - that is, they are very long and very slender. Materials must have certain physical characteristics to hold together in this form.
Fibers can be formed from many natural and man-made materials, including polymers, metals, glass and rock in addition to plant and animal sources.
Fibers are of great importance in the biology of both plants and animals, for holding tissues together.
Bio-Medical
CHARITÉ® Artificial Disc
New artificial organs and biotechnology to improve longevity and quality of life
Nanotechnology
History
Physicist Richard Feynman gave a lecture to the American Physical Society in
1959 which foresaw advantages from manufacturing on a very small scale - e.g. in integrated circuits for computers, for sequencing genes by reading
DNA molecules and using machines to make other machines with increasing precision.
The termm 'nanotechnology' was first used by Norio Taniguchi in 1974, in a talk
about how the accuracy of manufacturing had improved over time. He referred to
'nanotechnology' as that which achieved greater dimensional accuracy than 100nm.
Feynman also envisaged machines that could pick up and place individual atoms. This development of this idea was later assisted by the invention of the scanning probe electron microscope (SPM) which allowed scientists to 'see' and manipulate the individual atoms in a surface. In 1989 one of the defining moments in nanotechnology occurred when Don Eigler used a SPM to spell out the letters IBM in xenon atoms. For the first time scientists could put atoms exactly where they wanted them.
Molecular building blocks - Another great leap forward occurred in the shape of a new form of carbon. Harry Kroto from the University of Sussex, together with Richard Smalley and Robert Curl, discovered the carbon 60 molecule, which is shaped like a soccer ball. They named the molecular structure after the similarly shaped geodesic dome structure pioneered by the architect Buckminster Fuller. Unfortunately 'Buckminsterfullerene' is too long a name for most people and so they are often called 'Buckyballs'!
There are two fundamentally different approaches to nanotechnology, termed 'top down' and 'bottom up'.
'Top-down' nanotechnology features the use of micro- and nano-lithography and etching. Here, small features
are made by starting with larger materials (e.g. semi-conductors) and patterning
and "carving down" to make nanoscale structures in precise patterns. Complex structures
including microprocessors containing hundreds of millions of precisely positioned
nanostructures can be fabricated. Of all forms of nanotechnology, this is the
most well established.
Nanotechnologies are widely seen as having huge potential in areas as diverse as healthcare, IT and energy storage. Governments and businesses across the world have started to invest substantially in their development. However there are also concerns regarding the safety of nanotechnology, such as the possible dangers of foreign nano-particles entering human organs and the bloodstream.
Professors in the Department of Polymer and Fiber Engineering are conducting research in nanomaterials, including nanotubes, assisted by graduate and undergraduate students.Automotive
Aviation
Construction materials
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DuPont composite countertop |
Electronics and communications equipment
Marine
Recreational equipment
Safety Materials
