Polymer Properties

The continuous development of the modern process industries has made it increasingly important to have information about the properties of materials, including many new chemical substances whose physical properties have never been measured experimentally. This is especially true of polymeric substances. This chapter discusses the properties of polymers and correlates the properties of known polymers with their chemical structure, to establish structure–property relationships. These correlations may be purely empirical, purely theoretical, or partly empirical and partly theoretical. This chapter also describes the methods for the estimation and prediction of the more important properties of polymers in the solid, liquid, and dissolved states, in cases where experimental values are not to be found. This description of correlations and methods for estimation and prediction are based on the rationale that the design of manufacturing and processing equipment requires considerable knowledge of the processed materials and related compounds. Also, this knowledge is essential for the application and final use of these materials.