This work has been carried out with the support of the large mPP2 collaboration, between departments of Chemistry, Physics, Materials Science, Engineering, at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds, Sheffield, Durham and Bradford, and with the help of several industrial partners.
The mPP2 team
As part of the mPP2 collaboration I have had the unique opportunity to study the mechanical deformation and properties of an unusually wide range of well-characterised monodisperse atactic polystyrenes. These are glassy polymers made up of identical chains.
A glassy polymer is made up of lots of identical chains frozen in place
The advantage of studying such polymers is that the characteristic relaxation times seen by the polymers are all identical, and a better understanding of the effects of relaxation, chain length and architecture can be made. The understanding can then be extended to the more complex industrial plastics.
The project is described in more detail in the following pages:
- Mechanical Deformation
- Modelling
- Crazing introduction
- Crazing research
- Extension to semicrystalline polymers
There are two lists of relevant publications in the areas of polymer mechanics and crazing.
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