An Introduction to Polymer Engineering

Chemically, polymers are long chain molecules of very high molecular weight, often measured in hundreds of thousands. For this reason, the term macromolecules are frequently used when referring to polymeric materials. Any polymer sample consists of many chains of different lenghths. A polymer should constitute of a large number of simple repeated building units called monomers, the number of which is termed as degree of polymerization the first polymer used were natural products, specialty cotton, starch, protein and wool. Beginning in the twentieth century systemic polymers were made as Bakelite and nylon showed that tremendous possibilities of the new material.