Plastics

In the classic 1967 movie The Graduate, a wise adult has one word of advice for the young college graduate: plastics. In fact, modern plastics can be divided into two families based on their molecular structures: polymers and thermosets. During the fifty years since Mrs. Robinson first laid eyes on that young man, polymers, thermosets and composites have made tremendous inroads into applications previously reserved for wood and metal. So “here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson” because our own college graduates have the expertise to determine how and why things go wrong in well-established uses as well as in new and novel applications of these synthetic materials.