Polymer applications appear to be limited only by our imagination
Polymer Engineering is one of the more exotic engineering disciplines which has expanded and developed a critical function within the medical device manufacturing sector in the past 15 years.
What is polymer engineering? Polymer Engineering is a field of engineering that deals with the analysis, design and modification of polymer materials and involves aspects of a variety of the pertochem industry including structure and characterisation as well as compounding, properties and processing of polymers and their applications.
These are then divide into thermoplastics and thermosets, the latter being consisting of resins and polyesters which can be used in composite materials which have applications in aerospace and automotive products etc.
Thermoplastics tend to have low density characteristics including transparencywhich makes them ideal for medical devices such as blood bags, syringes or contact lenses (PET or polypropylene).
Elastomers are ploymers with low tensile moduli and are excellent for vibration absorbtion and damping and have applications in areas of products such as Tyres.
Recruitment prospects then for polymer engineers are quiet good even despite the economic downturn as several industries have considerable demand in their manufacturing processes for polymer or process engineers who are key to the manufacture of advanced medical devices or automotive components or indeed for further scientific Research and Development.
