Starting from household goods to sophisticated equipments and machinery, plastic have nearly revolutionized every sphere of manufacturing activity involving materials. The furniture that you are seated in, the computer that you are looking at, the buttons that hold your shirt in place, the water bottles you use, the pen you write with, the stationery you use, the vehicles you drive, and several other things you find around you are made of plastics. It is rather tough to imagine a day’s life without plastics.
If you admire the amazing properties of plastics and like to find a career with plastics, then plastics engineering will suit you the best. If look forward to be part of a field that has nearly influenced every type of industry, then plastics can be the right fit for you. Plastic engineering is a highly interesting field concerned with the processing, designing, development and production of plastic products. This highly interesting kind of polymeric material exists in semi liquid state with the properties of plasticity and flow. Plastics engineering covers the plastic material and machinery used in the plastic processing industry.
It is rather very difficult to quantify the mechanical properties of plastics. Plastic engineers need to do the challenging job of designing products for every typical requirement across several industries while keeping the cost to minimum. Some of the other concerns that plastics engineers need to address include thermal properties and outdoor life, upper use temperature, electrical properties, barrier properties and resistance to chemical exposures.
Plastics engineers need to be knowledgeable in chemistry, physics, engineering and mathematics to be able to develop everyday products. Plastics engineering is a specialization in materials engineering. The essence of plastics engineering is to apply the engineering and scientific principles to design and develop a wide array of polymer products for use across several industries. Plastics are extensively used from airplane wings to golf clubs and in everything in between.
Some of the most popular application of plastics include Consumer Plastics, Medical plastics, Automotive plastics, Recycled or recyclable plastics, Biodegradable plastics, Elastomers / rubber and Epoxys. The different segments of plastics processing include plastics moulding, thermo-forming, compression moulding, plastics extrusion, laminating, rotational moulding, vacuum forming, filament winding, pultrusion, transfer moulding, and stretch-blow moulding. Working across these areas, plastics engineers can assume roles as materials engineer, plastic product designer, plastics extrusion engineer, and polymer engineer.
Plastic engineers have the task of solving all material related problems with the objective of designing and developing products with enhanced performance and durability. There are a wide range of career options for plastics engineers across government, education and manufacturing industries under the job titles including materials research engineer, process engineer, plastic product designer, or production planner.
Plastics engineers require a wide array of knowledge across the fields including chemistry, physics and mathematics. Plastics engineering courses are available from the associate to the doctoral level. Plastics engineers require a minimum of bachelor’s degree in plastics engineering. Technology, especially in the plastics arena is fast growing. To stay at the competitive edge, plastics engineers need to constantly update their knowledge and exposure. Plastics engineers can uniquely suit the requirements of several industries and therefore, have a large number of career options opening up after their education.
