Published in October, the special issue of Plastics, Rubber and Composites: Macromolecular Engineering is formed from peer-reviewed papers based on selected presentations at a one day conference organised by the Rubber in Engineering Group (RIEG) of The Polymer Society of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. ‘Time dependent behaviour of rubber’ was held at the IOM3 London headquarters on 30 October 2008, chaired by Dr Martin Burke of QinetiQ, who is also a member of the RIEG committee. The central themes of the conference, reflected in the special issue, were concerned with measuring and predicting long term properties of rubber such as creep and stress relaxation, characterising the dynamic mechanical properties, understanding high frequency behaviour encountered in acoustic or ballistic situations  and predicting the dynamic behaviour of real vibration damping systems. Understanding of this time dependent behaviour of rubber is critical in application in areas such as sound and vibration isolation.

The REIG special issue features, amongst others, papers on a new class of rubber materials, magnetoelastomers, whose dynamic properties can be altered by the application of a magnetic field; methods used to predict long term dynamic behaviour; the use of finite element models to model second order formation behaviour. The Rubber Foundation Lecture for 2008, ‘Vagaries of elastomer service life predictions’, presented at the end of the conference by Dr Mike Roland from the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, is also included in the issue.

Maney will publish a selection of invited papers from the RIEG’s conference held in 2010. Further updates are to be announced later in the year.

James Busfield and Martin Burke’s editorial is available to view online for free and gives a full list of contents for the special issue.

Edited by Professor Phil Coates of Bradford University, UK, PRC:ME publishes original research on the macromolecular engineering of polymeric and related materials and polymer matrix composites, with a strong focus on the manipulation of structure at the molecular scale to control properties and fitness for purpose of the final component. For further information, including how to submit to the journal, visit the journal homepage. For the latest content, sign up for journal TOC alerts.

Maney Publishing is an independent publishing company specialising in academic journals in materials science and engineering, the humanities, and health science. Based in the UK and USA, Maney is the official publisher for the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3).

IOM3 members have free online access to the Institute’s refereed journals via Ingenta. See http://www.iom3.org/content/journal-access for further information. Please note that you must be logged in to this site in order to access journal content.

Further information
Contact Naomi Asantewa-Sechereh, Maney Publishing, tel: +44 (0)207 451 7308.