The need for writing a monograph on polymer blends and composites became apparent during presentation of material on this subject to our advanced polymers class. Although the flood of important research in this area in the past decade has resulted in many symposia, edited collections of papers, reviews, contributions to scientific journals, and patents, apparently no organized presentation in book form has been forthcoming. In a closely connected way, another strong impetus for writing this monograph arose out of our research programs in the Materials Research Center at Lehigh University. As part of this effort, we had naturally compiled hundreds of references and become acquainted with many leaders in the field of blend and composite research. Perhaps the most important concept stressed over and over again is that engineering materials are useful because of their complexity, not in spite of it. Blends and composites are toughened because many modes of resistance to failure are available. Although such multimechanism processes are diffi cult to describe with a unified theory. we have presented available develop ments in juxtaposition with the experimental portions. The arguments somewhat resemble the classical discussion of resonance in organic chemistry, where molecular structures increase in stability as more electronic configura tions become available. Front Matter....Pages i-xvii Homopolymer Structure and Behavior....Pages 1-49 General Behavior of Polymer Mixtures....Pages 51-75 Rubber-Toughened Plastics....Pages 77-119 Diblock and Triblock Copolymers....Pages 121-151 Multiblock Copolymers, Including Ionomers....Pages 153-168 Crystalline Block Copolymers....Pages 169-209 Miscellaneous Grafted Copolymers....Pages 211-236 Interpenetrating Polymer Networks....Pages 237-270 Miscellaneous Polymer Blends....Pages 271-297 Reinforcement of Elastomers....Pages 299-333 Filled Porous Systems....Pages 335-371 Particle- and Fiber-Reinforced Plastics....Pages 373-457 A Peek into the Future....Pages 459-479 Back Matter....Pages 481-513 1. Homopolymer Structure and Behavior.- 1.1. High Polymers.- 1.2. Molecular Size and Shape.- 1.2.1. Chain Conformation.- 1.2.2. Chain Entanglement.- 1.3. Molecular Structure.- 1.3.1. Configurations of Polymer Chains.- 1.3.2. Stereo and Geometrical Isomerism.- 1.3.3. Random Branching.- 1.3.4. Nonrandom Branching.- 1.3.5. Crosslinking.- 1.4. Crystallinity and Order.- 1.4.1. Fringed Micelle Model.- 1.4.2. Folded-Chain Single Crystals.- 1.4.3. Extended-Chain Crystals.- 1.4.4. Spherulites.- 1.5. Mechanical Response: Elasticity and Viscoelasticity.- 1.5.1. Molecular and Segmental Motion.- 1.5.2. Modu
