About the PEC
Polymer engineering activities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison date back to 1946 when Professor Ronald Daggett first included plastics in the mechanical engineering curriculum. Currently, research interests range from traditional plastics and polymeric/metal composites to bio-based polymers, and composites; from conventional to emerging and innovative processes; from geometric modeling and prototyping to process control and automation; from nanofilm and nanocomposites to microcellular plastics; and from advanced modeling and simulation to Internet and Web-based tools for design and manufacturing. The breadth and depth of research activities at the PEC at UW-Madison have made them among the nation’s strongest research groups in the areas of mechanical engineering, polymer engineering, and polymer composites research.
Motivation
Today, the plastics industry plays a significant role in the state of Wisconsin and the nation. The Wisconsin plastics industry employs over 60,000 people, and ranks in the top 10 states in the US. According to the Society of the Plastics Industry, the plastics industry is the fourth-largest manufacturing industry in the United States, accounting for approximately $331 billion in annual shipments and more than 1.5 million direct employees nationwide. Since 1976, plastics have been the most widely used materials in this nation, surpassing steel, copper, and aluminum in combined volume. In spite of the strong growth and ubiquity of plastic products, the plastics industry continually faces new customer demands, furious global competition, steadily rising oil prices, and growing environmental concerns. Many problems remain unsolved and new ones appear each day. To address these problems collectively with the plastics industry through education, training, and research, eleven faculty members at the College of Engineering at the UW-Madison joined force together to create PEC in 2001. In October 2002, PEC joined the Center for Applied Polymer and Composites Engineering (CAPCE) at The Ohio State University and the Florida Advanced Center for Composite Technologies (FAC2T) at Florida A&M University and Florida State University and became a multi-University Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) sponsored by the industrial consortia of these three centers and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
