NSF Workshop on Life Performance of Polymer Based Engineering Materials: The Interaction Between Mechanics and Chemistry; Washington, DC; Fall 2013

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A workshop will be convened on Life Performance of Polymer based Engineering Materials (LPPEM): The Interaction between Mechanics and Chemistry. Polymers are currently used in a large number of engineering applications, where failure of the polymer based materials can have significant consequences. The time dependent properties of the polymer is typically the critical aspect in these advanced engineering applications. The interplay between chemistry and mechanics is a key challenge in predicting the life performance of these materials. The objective of the LPPEM workshop is bringing together researchers from the mechanics and chemistry communities to identify the needs and knowledge gaps required to advance the methodologies in both experimental and computational fronts. Bringing these often disparate disciplines together will be intellectually challenging and should stimulate the development of new research ideas and approaches at the domain interfaces: ideas and approaches that may also have value inside the individual research domains. The development of improved, rational and robust methods for predicting the life performance of polymers and polymers composites will have important benefits for the US technical infrastructure, including both (i) improved utilization of existing materials in new applications and (ii) effective design and more rapid deployment of new materials. By elucidating research challenges and opportunities, the LPPEM workshop will begin the process of identifying potential approaches for the more rapid development, deployment and validation of the life performance of polymeric materials that are increasingly important for advanced engineering applications in the 21st century.