Polymer engineering

Abstract: Weight reduction of vehicle is very important because vehicle weight directly affects energy consumption. Studies researching lightweight vehicle manufacturing process that use polymers are reviewed in this paper. Approaches reducing the weights of vehicles using polymers most frequently involve replacing ferrous and non-ferrous metals with polymers and increasing the specific strengths and rigidities of polymers. Researches into polymers for use in lightweight vehicle are classified into high performance polymers, polymers for weight reduction, reinforced polymer composites, polymer sandwich panels, and polymer/metal hybrid systems. A diverse range of polymer materials can be used to make vehicle components and the manufacturing methods required to produce and work those materials vary greatly. Shaping processes must be chosen according to the materials being used and the product design. Replacement of metal products with polymer materials in current vehicles is limited. Large amounts of lightweight materials, such as polymers, will be greatly used to construct newly developed vehicles, including electric and electric/hybrid vehicles.

Abstract: We have fabricated new types of polymer hydrogels and polymer nanocomposites, that is, nanocomposite gels (NC gels) and soft polymer nanocomposites (M-NCs), with novel organic/inorganic network structures. Both NC gels and M-NCs were synthesized by in situ free-radical polymerization in the presence of exfoliated clay platelets in aqueous systems and were obtained in various forms and sizes with a wide range of clay contents. Here, disk-like inorganic clay nanoparticles function as multifunctional crosslinkers to form new types of network systems. NC gels have extraordinary optical, mechanical and swelling/deswelling properties, as well as a number of new characteristics relating to optical anisotropy, polymer/clay morphology, biocompatibility, stimuli-sensitive surfaces, micropatterning and so on. The M-NCs also exhibit dramatic improvements in optical and mechanical properties including ultrahigh reversible extensibility and well-defined yielding behavior, despite their high clay contents. Thus, the serious disadvantages (intractability, mechanical fragility, optical turbidity, poor processing ability, low stimulus sensitivity and so on) associated with the conventional, chemically crosslinked polymeric materials were overcome in NC gels and M-NCs.