There is continued pressure to increase the functionality of rubber products. One possible way of doing this is to make the components “smart” in some way so for example they can advise you of their loading, or perhaps warn if they have been overloaded or are about to fail having reached the end of their useful life. This ATD will discuss very recent innovations in the area of developing products to add some aspect of SMART behaviour. Programme: James Adams (University of Surrey) - Liquid crystal elastomers: what are their applications? Adam Graham (Peratech Ltd) - Smart elastomers Peter Foot (Kingston University) - Conductive polymers Martyn Bennett (Artis), Alan Thomas, Vineet Jha and James Busfield (QMUL) - Strain sensitive filled elastomers
New members of the family now in press
Now open for Original Research and Review article submission.