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Plastic can simply be defined as a polymer, which is in a semi-liquid state initially and has the property of plasticity. The branch of engineering, that is concerned with the plastics, is known as plastic engineering. Plastic engineering includes various techniques and procedures used to process the plastics. Processing, designing, developing and manufacturing of plastic products constitute the curriculum of plastic engineering.

Challenges to the Plastic Engineer:-

Properties that the plastic possess, produces some diligent challenges to the engineer. The limit of plastic's mechanical properties is very difficult to be determined. The plastic engineer has to make a new product that is cost-effective and meets certain specifications. Apart from the mechanical properties, there exist many other properties or factors that has to been given a good look by the plastic engineer like,

• Effect of surrounding weather,


• Thermal properties like high temperature etc.,


• Electrical properties,


• Resistance nature towards chemicals, and many more.

Economics of Plastics

The economics of any product has a very important role. Hence in plastic engineering, the economics of plastic is an utmost important factor. The range of the plastic materials varies from very cheap to very costly. Engineering resin is the name given to the most expensive plastic materials. Different factors are considered while measuring the cost of the plastic material.

• Generally cost is measured in price per pound of the material or price per volume of the material. But now-a-days, first the product is made to meet some specific standards and then cost is measured in price per unit of a particular property.



• Price according to the process-ability is also an important part of the economics of plastics. This is so because some plastic materials are processed at high temperatures though relatively long time is required to cool them. In the mass production, this long cooling time turns out to be very expensive.

Plastics made from the recycled materials are very rarely used in engineering, since these do not have a consistent formulation and physical property. Some of the plastic engineering specialties are medical plastics, automotive plastics, recycled or recyclable plastics, biodegradable plastics, epoxy's etc. In the plastic engineering various plastic processing methods are used like injection moulding, plastics extrusion, stretch-blow molding, thermoforming, compression molding, calendering, transfer molding and much more.