CENG/NANO 134: Polymeric Materials (Section IDs 855244 & 855265)
Winter 2016, MWF 10-10:50 am, CENTR 212
Instructor
Prof. Darren J. Lipomi dlipomi@eng.ucsd.edu
Office: SME Building, 242H
Phone: (858) 246-1227
Office hours: Friday 1-2 pm (2-3 pm on 1/8)
Teaching Assistants
Sam Root (seroot@eng.ucsd.edu)
Brandon Marin (brmarin@eng.ucsd.edu)
Office hours: TBA
Location: TBA
Text
Hiemenz & Lodge Polymer Chemistry 2 nd Edition
Available at the UCSD Bookstore and on reserve at library
Supplemental Text
Cowie & Arrighi Polymers: Chemistry & Physics of Modern Materials 3
On reserve at library rd Edition
Electronic resources tritoned.ucsd.edu will contain homework solutions, old exams and solutions, current exams and solutions, supplementary readings, and grades. Podcasts of the lectures are available on podcast.ucsd.edu and will appear immediately after the lectures.
Schedule and Exams
The course will be divided into three 3-week units. The chapters listed below are approximate.
(1) Chemistry (Chapters 1-5): synthesis, kinetics, and molecular structure. Midterm 1: 1/22
(2) Materials (Chapters 6-8, 13): thermodynamics, microstructure, characterization. Midterm 2: 2/12
(3) Mechanics (Chapters 10-12): mechanical and thermal properties. Midterm 3: 3/4
There is no class on Martin Luther King Day (Mon. 1/18) and President’s Day (Mon. 2/15)
In week 10, we will cover special topics in polymer science, which may include real-world applications, an in-depth discussion of intermolecular forces, or computation.
The final exam is Friday, 3/18, 8-11 am, location TBA.
Homework
I will recommend problems at the end of relevant chapters in Hiemenz and Lodge , which will be solved in
TA office hours starting in Week 2. Homework is not due for a grade. After office hours, solutions to these problems will be available on TritonEd. In addition to these “official” homework problems, I have uploaded last year’s exams and solutions, which will help you gauge the level of preparation required for this year’s exams. In addition, there is a supplemental text listed above for which I have uploaded the solutions manual, in case you want additional practice. Problems listed in my handwritten lecture notes refer to recommended problems in the supplemental text, not to the main text.
How to study
This class is unlike many other classes you may have taken in that terminology in polymer science can feel like a new language. That is, facts are important. The level of mathematics needed for this class is not very sophisticated; it is more important that you develop an intuition for how a synthetic method and its kinetics influence the molecular structure, how the molecular structure influences the solid-state microstructure, and how both levels of structure produce the bulk properties. Students who receive an A in the course will listen to the podcast while annotating their class notes (or my notes, online), reading relevant sections in the textbook, and working through the recommended problems in the main text and the old exams, and attending office hours as needed. Making flashcards can be helpful. Turn off your phone while you study.

Exams
Exam questions will cover material from the lecture notes and explicitly assigned topics or problems in the book. If a topic is covered in the book, but is not mentioned in class or in the homework (Hiemenz and
Lodge), it will not be covered on the exam.
Grading
Three midterm exams 20% each; final exam 40%. Course grades will be computed using two methods, and the higher of the two grades will be used as the final grade. In the first method, I will rank the class from top to bottom and distribute 30% As, 30% Bs, 30% Cs, 5% Ds, and 5% Fs. In the second method, I will assign letter grades based on an absolute scale of the points earned in the course, as follows:
93 – 100
85 – 92.99
77 – 84.99
69 – 76.99
61 – 68.99
50 – 60.99
40 – 49.99
31 – 39.99
21 – 30.99
0 – 20.99
Crying
No crying.
A
A–
B+
B
B–
C+
C
C–
D
F