Ultraviolet rays, heat and moisture cause millions of dollars of damage every year to materials exposed to the environment. Understanding the weatherability of plastics and rubber is the only way to predict the durability of an end product. With that in mind, this exhaustive databank was assembled to describe how the various elements of weathering affect the properties and characteristics of numerous plastics and elastomers, also paying attention to the effects of additives and fillers and to the special properties of alloys and blends.

This extensively updated second edition covers 78 major plastic and elastomeric materials, including biodegradable or organic polymers. New to this edition, each resin chapter contains a textual summary including material family, general description, and weathering properties detailing the material's susceptibility or resistance to weathering, with a discussion of test results. Extensive references are provided.

From the Preface: “...Designed as a reference handbook, this edition presents data in a format that allows the user to easily compare and contrast performance characteristics between different polymer families, and, where possible, between the products available within a material family itself. Information was compiled from many different sources: material manufacturers, technical journals, and papers, etc...A major contributing factor to the outdoor weathering (degradation) of polymers is UV light. Temperature, moisture, and pollutants combine with the UV light and degrade polymers by different mechanisms...”

Target Audience: Plastics, design, and reliability engineers, forensic specialists, materials scientists and specifiers, and anyone else concerned with environmental degradation of plastics and elastomers.

Brief Table of Contents:

Introduction

Thermoplastics

Thermoplastic Blends/Alloys

Thermosets

Thermoplastic Elastomers

Thermosetting Elastomers (Rubbers)

Glossary

Index