Undergraduate Laboratory In Polymer Science And Engineering

我们的目标是建立一个聚合物科学与工程本科实验室，以更新宾夕法尼亚大学的本科工程课程。拟议中的实验室将通过教授聚合物科学的重要原理并向他们介绍最先进的设备，使本科生受益。该项目的范围包括必修的核心课程、选修的聚合物课程和独立的本科研究或设计项目。计划中的实验室练习包括聚合物合成、计算机模拟、分子和结构表征、形态研究和机械性能测量。在合成了它们自己的聚合物后，将使用差示扫描量热仪和动态机械分析仪来研究其热力学、动力学和机械性能。这种热分析设备将是本科生聚合物实验室的主要组成部分，因为这些仪器可以探测各种聚合物特性(例如玻璃化转变、结晶、模数)。该项目的一个独特特点是结合了分子建模，以说明链的构象和规则性，并根据分子结构预测宏观性质。为了利用现有的本科光学显微镜设备研究聚合物的相变和结晶，需要一个热阶段。这个项目之所以意义重大，有三个原因：宾夕法尼亚大学目前没有研究聚合物科学和工程的本科实验室设施，我们的本科工程师经常在聚合物或聚合物相关领域找到工作，最后，聚合物材料具有巨大的商业和科学重要性。

We aim to establish an Undergraduate Laboratory in Polymer Science and Engineering to update the undergraduate engineering program at the University of Pennsylvania. The proposed laboratory will benefit undergraduate students by teaching important principles in polymer science and by introducing them to state-of-the-art equipment. The scope of the project involves required core courses, elective polymer courses and independent undergraduate research or design projects. The planned laboratory exercises include polymer syntheses, computer simulations, molecular and structural characterizations, morphology investigations and mechanical property measurements. Upon synthesizing their own polymers, thermodynamic, kinetic and mechanical properties will be investigated using a differential scanning calorimeter and a dynamic mechanical analyzer. This thermal analysis equipment will be a major component of the undergraduate polymer laboratory, because of the variety of polymer characteristics which these instruments can probe (e.g. glass transition, crystallization, moduli). A unique feature of the project is the incorporation of molecular modeling for illustrating chain conformations and tacticity and for predicting macroscopic properties from molecular structures. A hot stage is necessary to study the phase transitions and crystallization of polymers using an existing undergraduate light microscopy facility. This project is significant for three reasons: undergraduate laboratory facilities for the study of polymer science and engineering currently do not exist at Penn, our undergraduate engineers frequently find employment in polymer or polymer- related fields, and finally, polymeric materials are of immense commercial and scientific importance.