Advantages and Disadvantages of Plastics
Advantages and Disadvantages of Plastics The growth of the polymer industry in the latter half of the 20th century has been phenomenal and shows no signs of decreasing. If the advantages of synthetic polymers over competing materials such as metals and ceramics are considered, it is reasonable to predict that polymers will take an even greater share of the total materials market in the future. Some of these advantages and disadvantages will now be discussed. Strength and stiffness in plastics should be discussed in terms of strength/weight or strength/cost ratios to be significant. unfilled plastics cannot approach structural metals in absolute values of strength or stiffness (where stiffness is proportional to modulus of elasticity). It also shows that plastics tend to be inferior to metals and to wood in stiffness/weight ratio (E/S g ). Only costly polymer composites (fiber reinforced plastics) approach alloy steels or hardened aluminum in strength/weight ratio (a/Sg). Increasing ...