This study looks at plastic, in particular as a flooring material, and its role and influence on design practice and applied decoration. It addresses the potential for surfaces to incorporate digital technology and communications systems and proposes the development of a reactive flooring surface. The study is organised in two parts. The first sets out my personal experience and ambition for the development of flooring design and the evolving relationship between practical design work and theoretical investigation, on the nature of the conceptual and material qualities of plastics. It sequentially charts investigations into reproduction and quality for applied images, through a recognition and exploration of plastic as an inherent quality and its potential as a smart material, and finally presents projects that extend the term plastic as a metaphor for malleability. The Study concludes with a proposal for a representational behaviour for plastic material as it progresses into the realm of digital media. The second part covers a wide range of field research. It draws on critical theory and on cultural and historical commentaries on specific aspects of design, technology and development. Firstly, in order to contextualise the central proposal for a responsive flooring project, it presents a survey of projects and practitioners whose work also demonstrates a relationship between material and digital experience, establishing a framework for the discussion and charting of forms of interaction from a materials perspective. Secondly, it reflects on the limited tactile qualities of plastic materials and its emergent cultural symbolism. With plastic then employed as a metaphorical precedent, its historical development can provide a new perspective on the integration of emergent digital technologies into culture. Thirdly, the second part presents real material developments that signal the shift into new applications. And finally touches upon how the language of critical discussion can influence the understanding, and therefore developmental choices, in emergent technologies in the light of the way the term plastic has been affected by its common and cultural linguistic applications beyond its material substance. Thus, by drawing on the developments of material properties, and concentrating on a thread of inquiry based on Plastic qualities, the aim has been to bring digital possibilities into the physical realm, reinstating sensory experience.

Pultruded glass-fibre reinforced plastics (GRP) are becoming a popular alternative to conventional materials in Civil Engineering industry. The work presented in this thesis attempts to carry out an integrated and comprehensive programme of research on pultruded GRP bolted joints, in order to provide useful data, knowledge and guidance for design engineers seeking to use bolted joints in pultruded GRP structures. The research was sub-divided into three phases. Phase 1 included determining material properties, conducting tests in double-lap single-bolt tension joints at elevated temperature and starting to develop ANSYS FE models of single-bolt joints. Phase 2 covered testing of double-lap single-bolt tension joints under wet and hot-wet conditions, FE stress and displacement analyses of the tested joint geometries and assessing existing joint design approaches. In Phase 3 the focus was on testing concentrically loaded double-lap multi-bolt tension joints and FE modelling of these joints. In addition, work was undertaken on correlating strains around the hole edge, recorded using the PhotoStress method and conventional strain gauges, with FE analysis. Work was also undertaken on an assessment of current approaches to the design of bolted joints in fibre-reinforced polymeric composite materials, particularly the EUROCOMP Simplified and Hart-Smith design methods.

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The aim of the present work was to investigate the evolution of thermal and mechanical properties during the polymerisation of a thermosetting resin that is typical those used as the matrix in advanced composites. The mechanism of the cure reaction was studied using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) in both dynamic (thermal scanning) and isothermal modes, and procedures for correlating the two types of calorimetric data were developed. The model finally chosen encapsulates the diffusion- controlled mechanism of reaction by establishing a one-to-one relationship between the degree of cure and the glass transition temperature, which is assumed to be a structural parameter during the polymerisation. A detailed experimental investigation of specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity, secondary transformations (gelation and vitrification), thermal and chemical volume changes and stress relaxation moduli was carried out to establish a suitable database for the resin. Where possible, a closed analytical model was employed; alternatively, an interpolation procedure was developed evaluate the changes in a selected property during a more complex temperature profile. Experimental equipment was developed to perform shrinkage measurements on the neat resin system; the results obtained were later compared with experimental data from standard liquid dilatometry tests. A simulation of the curing of a bi-material cantilever beam is presented as a test case highlight the influence of property changes on the final curvature. Sample curvature during the experiment was recorded using a digital camera and then analysed using graphical software. The correlation between the observed values of curvature and the results of a finite element based simulation was used to validate the kinetics model and property modelling for the chosen thermosetting resin.

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