Polymer Melt Processing

Most of the shaping in the manufacture of polymeric objects is carried out in the melt state, as it is a substantial part of the physical property development. Melt processing involves an interplay between fluid mechanics and heat transfer in rheologically complex liquids, and taken as a whole it is a nice example of the importance of coupled transport processes. This book is on the underlying foundations of polymer melt processing, which can be derived from relatively straightforward ideas in fluid mechanics and heat transfer; the level is that of an advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate course, and the material can serve as the text for a course in polymer processing or for a second course in transport processes.

Morton M. Denn is the Albert Einstein Professor and Director of the Benjamin Levich Institute for Physico-Chemical Hydrodynamics at the City College of New York, CUNY. Prior to joining CCNY in 1999, he was Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where he served as Department Chair, as well as Program Leader in the Materials Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He previously taught chemical engineering at the University of Delaware, where he was the Allan P. Colburn Professor. Professor Denn was Editor of AIChE Journal from 1985 to 1991 and Editor of the Journal of Rheology from 1995 to 2005. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship; a Fulbright Lectureship; the Professional Progress, William H. Walker, Warren K. Lewis, and Institute Lectureship Awards of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; the Chemical Engineering Lectureship of the American Society for Engineering Education; and the Bingham Medal and Distinguished Service Awards of the Society of Rheology. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he received an honorary D.Sc. from the University of Minnesota. His previous books are Optimization by Variational Methods, Introduction to Chemical Engineering Analysis (as co-author), Stability of Reaction and Transport Processes, Process Fluid Mechanics, and Process Modeling.