This article provides practical information and data on property development in engineering plastics. It discusses the effects of composition on submolecular and higher-order structure and the influence of plasticizers, additives, and blowing agents. It examines stress-strain curves corresponding to soft-and-weak, soft-and-tough, hard-and-brittle, and hard-and-tough plastics and temperature-modulus plots representative of polymers with different degrees of crystallinity, cross-linking, and polarity. It explains how viscosity varies with shear rate in polymer melts and how processes align with various regions of the viscosity curve. It discusses the concept of shear sensitivity, the nature of viscoelastic properties, and the electrical, chemical, and optical properties of different plastics. It also reviews plastic processing operations, including extrusion, injection molding, and thermoforming, and addresses related considerations such as melt viscosity and melt strength, crystallization, orientation, die swell, melt fracture, shrinkage, molded-in stress, and polymer degradation.

This article provides an overview of the physics and math associated with moisture-related failures in plastic components. It develops key equations, showing how they are used to analyze the causes and effects of water uptake, diffusion, and moisture concentration in polymeric materials and resins. It explains how absorbed moisture affects a wide range of properties, including glass transition temperature, flexural and shear modulus,creep, stress relaxation, swelling, tensile and yield strength, and fatigue cracking. It provides relevant data on common polymers, resins, and fiber-resin composites.

Carbon steel tubes from a boiler feedwater heater feeding a deaerator were treated to control scale formation, but the treatment instead produced more iron oxide. The additional iron oxide reduced the tubing to a totally corroded condition. Investigation showed that the chelate injected to control the scaling was added ahead of the preheater, where the boiler water still contained oxygen. As the chelate removed iron oxide, the O2 in the water continued to form more. Recommendations included moving the chelate addition to a point after the deaerator to stop the corrosion.

This article reviews the analytical techniques most commonly used in plastic component failure analysis. These include the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, thermomechanical analysis, and dynamic mechanical analysis. The descriptions of the analytical techniques are supplemented by a series of case studies that include pertinent visual examination results and the corresponding images that aid in the characterization of the failures. The article describes the methods used for determining the molecular weight of a plastic resin. It explains the use of mechanical testing in failure analysis and also describes the considerations in the selection and use of test methods.