Forensic Polymer Engineering: Why Polymer Products Fail in Service - Hardcover

Inhaltsangabe

The ability to determine the cause or causes of failure using forensic tools is essential if product quality is to be improved. It is especially true of plastic, rubber and composite products. A failure of a polymer component can lead not just to economic loss but personal injury or even death. Forensic polymer engineering: why polymer products fail in service reviews the latest techniques for examining failed and fractured components, and the way that investigation proceeds after an accident or failure. It provides a series of case studies which illustrate the different kinds of failure and the methods most appropriate to their study, especially microscopy and spectroscopy.

Initial chapters give an introduction to the scope of the subject and an overview of the detailed methods used in forensic investigation. Further chapters examine failed medical devices, large storage tanks and small containers, pipes and fitting, seals and tools, a topic which includes ladders and furniture. The final chapters discuss component failure causing transportation accidents and consumer products such as knives, handles, luggage carriers and baby cots. The last chapter summarises the conclusions of the studies, with particular emphasis on poor design, flawed manufacturing, faulty materials and environmental problems suffered by polymers.

Forensic polymer engineering: why polymer products fail in service will be a standard reference work for forensic experts practicing in all fields of engineering where polymers are used, as well as products designers, forensic engineering students and insurance professionals.

Dr. Peter R. Lewis is Senior Lectures in Materials Engineering, while Colin Gagg is a Project Officer at the Open University. They are authors of Forensic Materials Engineering: Case Studies (CRC Press, 2004) and have co-authored numerous papers in the subject.

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