Handbook of Plastics, Elastomers & Composites

This revised and updated edition presents all of the fundamental information required to understand the large number of materials and material forms, and gives the necessary data and guidelines for optimal use of these materials and forms in the broad range of industrial products. Topics include: elastomers; composites; electrical design properties and testing; mechanical design properties and testing; health, safety and environmental resistance considerations; and laminate and reinforced plastics materials and properties. New chapters focus on advanced uses of plastics in automotive and packaging designs and recycling of plastics.

Table of Contents:
Preface Contributors About the Editor Chapter 1: Thermoplastics Chapter 2: Thermosets, Reinforced Plastics, and Composites Chapter 3: Elastomeric Materials and Processes Chapter 4: Composite Materials and Processes Chapter 5: Metal Matrix Composites, Ceramic Matrix Composites, Carbon Matrix Composites, and Thermally Conductive Polymer Matrix Composites Chapter 6: Plastics in Coatings and Finishes Chapter 7: Plastics and Elastomers in Adhesives Chapter 8: Plastics Joining Chapter 9: Design and Processing of Plastic Parts Chapter 10: Automotive Plastics and Elastomer Applications Chapter 11: Plastics in Packaging Chapter 12: Plastics Recycling Appendix A: Glossary of Terms and Definitions Appendix B: Some Common Abbreviations Used in the Plastics Industry Appendix C: Important Properties for Designing With Plastics Appendix D: Electrical Properties of Resins and Compounds Appendix E: Sources of Specifications and Standards for Plastics and Composites Index

About the Author :
Charles A. Harper is president of Technology Seminars, Inc., an organization devoted to presenting seminars on electronic packaging and related subjects to the electronics industry. He is a graduate of The John Hopkins University School of Engineering , Baltimore, MD., and a past member of the engineering faculty of The Johns Hopkins University. He is active in numerous professional societies, including the International Microelectronics and Packaging Society (of which he is a past president), the National Electronic Packaging Conference (NEPCON), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is series editor of McGraw-Hill's Electronic Packaging and Interconnection Technology Series and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Electronic Packaging and Production magazine.

Review :
The fourth edition of Handbook of Plastics, Elastomers, & Composites is revised and updated to reflect the continuous development of polymers and applications using polymers. With recent advances in polymeric materials, many applications are replacing established materials (metals, wood, etc.) with polymeric substitutes. Polymers are finding many new product applications in automotive, aerospace, industrial, and consumer applications. Sorting through the literally thousands of different types of polymers and polymer composites a product designer might be able to choose from can be very time consuming and may not result in the best choice. This handbook provides a valuable source of practical fundamental information on a wide range of materials and material processes, and provides the guidelines for optimizing the use of the material over a number of products. Since many product designers may not have a background in polymer technology, the first three chapters cover the basics of thermoplastics, thermosets, and elastomers. This background includes many excellent photos of molded plastic parts for each class of polymer, advantages of the modern molding over conventional materials, and a basic but insightful review of the chemistry of polymers. There are also many examples illustrating various molding processes, including sequential drawings of each process step. The next four chapters discuss actual materials -- composites including metal matrix, ceramic, carbon, and thermally conductive composites, coatings and adhesives. These sections review the basics of composites from manufacture, design, properties, environmental effects, and testing. Again, there are many photos and descriptions of the latest products on the market using composite materials. The chapter on joining plastics provides excellent guidelines when bonding with adhesives, thermally, solvents, or mechanical fasteners. This chapter can provide a designer with many ideas for joining plastic parts to produce a more cost-effective and higher-quality joint. There are also two chapters dedicated to automotive and packaging applications and a final chapter on plastics recycling. This comprehensive handbook would be most useful to product engineers who use plastics in their designs and need to understand the materials, properties, and processes to help determine the best materials for their design. IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine 20030210 Review by Dave Fish At a welcome-home party for a young man just out of college, a businessman sidles over, pulls him away and gives him some sage advice. "I just want to say one word to you... 'Plastics.' There's a great future in plastics. Think about it." This abbreviated formula for success is given in a 1960s film "The Graduate." But what's interesting is how very little has changed about the appropriateness of that advice in the intervening years. Charles Harper edited the Handbook of Plastics, Elastomers & Composites. This is the 4th edition of a book that McGraw-Hill first published in 1975. It has kept pace with the times by including, among things, a very current chapter on recycling plastics. I wished that it was more focused on recycling plastics used in electronics, like PLA and similar materials, but it does include, as other chapters of do, a substantial list of references. But electronics is not the focus of this book. The focus is PLASTICS. This book is intended to be a sourcebook of data for a range of interests. It's aimed at providing a fundamental understanding of plastics, elastomers, and composites to product designers. So for the engineer that managed to get this far without learning to "speak plastics", this book is intended to be a reprieve. It consolidates information, data, and guidelines that augment the suppliers' data sheets and tables for guidance from a single source. Charles Harper is an old friend of SMTnet. He has hosted several On-Board Forums. SMTnet has published reviews of several of his books. He runs a firm that that presents training courses in electronic packaging and manufacturing to business and industry. Prior to that Mr. Harper worked at Westinghouse. Widely recognized as a leader in this industry, he has authored over a dozen highly respected books. He is among the founders and past presidents of the International Microelectronics and Packaging Society (IMAPS). He is also Series Editor for the McGraw-Hill Electronic Packaging and Interconnection Series, a widely used book series in the electronics industry. Mr. Harper is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Engineering, where he has also served as Adjunct Professor. The team of authors for chapters of this book is impressive. Anne-Marie Baker, Ralph E. Wright, Ruben Hernandez, John L. Hull, Carl P. Izzo, James Margolis, Joey Mead, Stanley T. Peters, Edward M. Petrie, Susan E Selke, and Carl H. Zweben. The first three chapters cover the basics of thermoplastics, thermosets, and elatomers. The next four chapters cover major applications of plastics: composites, composites in electronics, coatings and finishes, and adhesives. The next chapter covers methods for the joining of materials. Possibly a little out-of-place sequentially, the following chapter covers part design in terms of materials selection, machining, molding and post-molding, and mold construction. The final chapters preceding the recycling chapter, mentioned earlier, look at uses of plastic in the automotive and packaging industries. Chapters of the book are: Chapter 1: Thermoplastics Chapter 2: Thermosets, Reinforced Plastics, and Composites Chapter 3: Elastomeric Materials and Processes Chapter 4: Composite Materials and Processes Chapter 5: Metal Matrix Composites, Ceramic Matrix Composites, Carbon Matrix Composites, and Thermally Conductive Polymer Matrix Composites Chapter 6: Plastics in Coatings and Finishes Chapter 7: Plastics and Elastomers in Adhesives Chapter 8: Plastics Joining Chapter 9: Design and Processing of Plastic Parts Chapter 10: Automotive Plastics and Elastomer Applications Chapter 11: Plastics in Packaging Chapter 12: Plastics Recycling Appendix A: Glossary of Terms and Definitions Appendix B: Some Common Abbreviations Used in the Plastics Industry Appendix C: Important Properties for Designing With Plastics Appendix D: Electrical Properties of Resins and Compounds Appendix E: Sources of Specifications and Standards for Plastics and Composites SMT (Surface Mount Technology) Express 20021017 Edited by Scott Beckwith SAMPE Technical Director Charlie Harper is back with another updated Handbook in a long series of successful handbooks. The 4th Edition is larger, updated, and heavily revised. The publication is a thorough sourcebook of practical design, manufacturing and data for all ranges of interests. One of its strengths is that it contains an extensive array of property and performance data, presented as a function of the more important product variables. Further, it presents all the important aspects of application guidelines, fabrication-method trade-offs, design, finishing, performance limits, and other basic polymer and plastic properties. The Handbook's other major features include thorough lists of standards and specifications sources, a completely cross-referenced easy-to-use index, a comprehensive glossary, useful end-of-chapter reference lists, and several appendices containing individual data and information for product engineers. Highly recommended as a reference book. SAMPE Journal 20021001