Fracture of Polymers meeting set for 25 Nov in London

London-A meeting in London on the fracture of polymers on 25 Nov 2004 aims to bring together research on fracture studies for various polymer materials. The co-organisers are Graham Lake on behalf of the Institute of Physics and James Busfield - on behalf of the Rubber in Engineering Group of the IOM3.

The meeting-see programme details below-is scheduled to start at 10.30 am, Thursday 25th Nov, at The Institute of Physics, London, 76 Portland Place, London W1B 1NT.

Costs: members of IOP or IOM3 £39.00, non-members £62.00. On-line registration is possible at http://conferences.iop.org/FRP

Conference organiser: Belinda Hopley, Institute of Physics:

Tel +44 (0) 20 7470 4800, fax +44 (0) 20 7470 4900.

Programme

10.30 Registration

11.00 Short Reviews: Mechanics of cutting of rubber by sharp objects and fatigue of laminated structures-GJ Lake (University of East London)

11.45 Some anomalous features of the strength of rubber-AN Gent (University of Akron, Ohio)

12.30 The establishment of steady crack growth rates during tearing and fatigue tests on elastomer materials-Y Papadopoulos, JJC Busfield and AG Thomas (Queen Mary, University of London)

13.15 Lunch

14.30 Degradation induced fracture of polyethylene-L Castro-Diaz, D Vesely and R Matthews (Oxford University)

15.00 Accelerated life failures in polymeric materials-JP Dear (Imperial College)

15.30 The importance of unobservable crack growth in polymeric pipe-CC Lawrence and R Potter (University of East London)

16.00 Discussion

16.15 Tea

16.30 Modelling the abrasion process in elastomer materials-H Liang,

JJC Busfield and AG Thomas (Queen Mary, University of London)

17.00 New method for assessment of adhesive bond strength-AG Thomas, CC Lawrence and GJ Lake (University of East London)

17.30 Discussion

17.40 Close