ABSTRACT
The Ÿrst systematic study of irradiation of polymers was carried out in order to determine the radiationdamagetopolymersforuseinradiationŸeldsoftheManhattanprojectduringWorld WarII.TheManhattanprojecthadaverygreatin¡uenceonallŸeldsofnuclearresearch,includingradiationchemistry.ThepeacefulusesofthenuclearreactorintheŸeldofradiationeffectson polymersstartedbeforethe“AtomsforPeace”addressdeliveredbyPresidentEisenhowerin1953. The Ÿrst systematic study of radiation effects on polyethylene thin Ÿlms by Dole and Rose, just after World WarII,wascarriedoutusingnuclearreactors.Theirresearchwaspublishedasamaster’s thesisin1948and,later,asapublishedpaper(Doleetal.,1954).However,non-solubleandnonmeltingcross-linkedpolyethyleneirradiatedbyanuclearreactorwasdemonstratedbyCharlesbyin 1952,andithadahugeimpactonindustry(Charlesby,1952).Today,theeconomicscaleofutilization of radiation in industry is very large and comparable to the economic scale of utilization of nuclearenergyinJapanandtheUnitedStates(Tagawaetal.,2002;Yanagisawaetal.,2002).The economicscaleofradiationuseinpolymerŸelds,suchasradiationcross-linkingfortheproduction ofimprovedcables,heat-shrinkablepackagingŸlmsandtubes,cross-linkedautomobiletirecomponents,resistmaterialsforsemiconductordevicefabrication,polymersforbiomedicalapplications, radiation sterilization of medical plastic supplies, radiation curing etc., is now well established (Tagawa et al., 2002; Yanagisawa et al., 2002).
