Thermal Analysis TA has become an indispensable family of analyticaltechniques in the polymer research. The increased importance of thesetechniques can be seen ... » 

Thermal Analysis TA has become an indispensable family of analyticaltechniques in the polymer research. The increased importance of thesetechniques can be seen as the result of three more or less paralleldevelopments a tempestuous development of TA measuring techniques in combination with ahigh degree of automation the strongly increased understanding of the underlaying theory and the increasing knowledge of the relation between the polymers chemicalstructure and their physical properties.These areas are still in their developmental stages especially the third area.The increasing knowledge of the dependence of physical properties on chemicalstructure just accentuated more and more the need for accurate thermoanalyticalmeasurements and this knowledge is very important for the first stages of thedevelopment of new polymeric systems. Besides the contribution of TA remainsnecessary for the technical and commercial development of such a new polymersystem. The use of the various TA techniques in these processes is described inthis book in nine chapters while chapter ten illustrates the informationobtained about different polymers during special case studies.This book illustrates in this way applications of a wide variety of TAtechniques whilst it is written from a materials characterisation rather thanfrom a TA point of view with attention being paid to the chemical structurephysical properties correlations. «