Hello. Well as far as dentistry is concerned, Alginate has been most widely used for recording of the impressions for dentate and edentulous patients. Due to its reasonable cost and reasonable properties, it is sometimes the material of choice for many clinicians in dentistry. I personally prefer it for patients requiring cast partial dentures and also I prefer using high viscosity type for initial impressions of the edentulous patients. It is very cheap and does the job really well. There are many types available for dental use from low to high viscous, quick and delayed setting types.

Dimensional stability is one of the problems but can be overcome with ease. I am attaching some paper links for you here. This may help if you want to look at it from dental point of view.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3714826/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9002847

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21821167

There are a lot of papers out there on the c13 NMR spectra or x-ray crystallography of alginates including information on structural changes depending on the ratio of guluronic vs mannuronic acids and the effect of different cations on the resultant gels (including sheer stress and flexibility).  You may like to look at Cheshire and Hallam (1985). 

doi: 10.2216/i0031-8884-24-2-147.1

Article The environmental role of alginates in Durvillaea potatorum ...