SELECTING PLASTIC AND PROCESS

This Chapter provides a summary concerning the selection procedures. Within each chapter in this book, detailed information on their respective subjects are presented. In presenting the information and data, comparisons are made that provide important information for selection for the process, material of construction (reinforcement, resin, additive, and/ or filler), and product design approach. Additional data is provided here particularly at the end of this chapter. 

Many materials, fabricating processes, and design approaches are employed. Which design, material, and process to use depends on factors such as performance requirements of product, materials of construction properties and their availability, process capability and availability, quantity of products, cost of material and process, and time schedule to deliver product(s) to customer. Some processes can be used with different kinds of RPs or a certain process can only be used with specific RPs. 

In order to arrive at the optimum material for a given use with some degree of efficiency and reliability, a systematic planned approach (obviously) has to be used that identifies and lists the product requirements with all the steps required to produce and deliver the products a few examples of plans have been reviewed in this book. The requirements include factors such as aesthetics, tolerances, fabricating 

It is unfortunate that plastics (URP and RP) do not have all the advantages and none of the disadvantages of other materials but often overlooked is the fact that there are no materials that do not suffer from some disadvantages or limitations. The faults of materials known and utilized for hundreds of years are often overlooked the faults of the new materials (URP and RP) are often overemphasized. 

As reviewed steel support, beams fail in a fire. To significantly extend the life of structural beams hardwood (thicker than steel, etc.) can be used thus, people can escape even though the wood slowly burns. The more useful and reliable structural beams would be using RPs that meet structural performance requirements with even a much more extended supporting life than wood. To date these RPs are not used in this type of fire environment primarily because of their high cost. 

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