Cellular materials: the unending opportunity and challenge for multidisciplinary polymer science

Abstract

Cellular polymers are important products accounting for about 10% of the global markets for thermoplastic and thermoset materials. During his industrial research career, Turner Alfrey made important contributions to the science and technology of various foams. His studies have not been published elsewhere, but they were pioneering concepts that had a major impact upon the understanding of the continuous extrusion process for polystyrene foams. The included paper entitled “Compression Behavior of Open-Celled Polyurethane Foams” was intended for presentation at the 1980 Gordon Conference on Foams. This author believes this to be the last scientific paper written by Turner Alfrey.