Preface
The “Polymeric Materials, Properties, Testing, and
Material Selection Handbook,” is the result of more
than thirty-five years of practical engineering and
development experience in all the plastic engineering
fields. The successful application of polymeric mate-
rials depends primarily on the ability to understand
the significance of test rosults to identify the material
properties required for a plastic product’s efficient
performance.
This handbook has been prepared for product
design and process engineers, laboratory testing tech-
nicians, and material procurement personnel. This
handbook’s usefulness depends on its simplicity and
its ability to provide essential information about
generic polymeric material’s test procedures, and
their properties.
For the most common generic polymeric materials
(88 thermoplastics, 22 thermoplastic elastomers, and
22 thermosets) selected for this handbook, generic
property tables are provided based on the category of
tests being reviewed. In addition, optical, coefficient
of friction, wear, and other property tables required
for special applications are included within these test
standards.
The differences found between the new ISO/IEC
and ASTM/UL testing standards have also been com-
pared. Observations are made when discrepancies are
found between these two test procedures, or when
important test standards have been omitted. Com-
ments are also provided when the test results between
both test standards can not be used to compare the
values and their reported units.
Literature on polymeric materials from around
the world concerning testing and properties are
reported by resin supplier’s material information
data sheets, and several private organization’s plas-
tic materials databases. In general, the information
of polymeric material test procedures and the sig-
nificance of the tests is very brief and oversimpli-
fied. The plastics industry does not have uniform
global testing standards, consequently, the poly-
meric material properties are incomplete, they are
not reported uniformly, and are difficult to compare
with other materials.
The following topics are covered:
Chapter 1 Polymeric Materials, Testing Orga-
nizations, Test Standards: Includes property data
information, need for uniform global testing stan-
dards, and introduction to plastics, the beginning of
plastics, classification of polymer families, descrip-
tion of major resins.
Chapter 2 Mechanical Properties of Poly-
meric Materials: Includes property tables; ASTM
and ISO standards comparison, cross-head speed,
molecular and fiber glass orientation, weld lines,
temperature, moisture, and creep effects on mechani-
cal properties. Tensile, flexural, compression, shear,
creep, rupture, relaxation and fatigue testing, Izod,
Charpy, chip, and tensile pendulum impact testing,
gardner drop, falling weight tower, and various types
of instrumented impact testing are also included.
Chapter 3 Thermal Properties of Polymeric
Materials: Includes property tables; ASTM and ISO
standards comparison, melting, Vicat softening, glass
transition, brittleness, continuous service, UL index,
and heat deflection temperature testing. Soldering
heat resistance, coefficient of expansion, and thermal
conductivity testing, melt flow rate and relative melt
viscosity testing, UL 94 flammability, limited oxygen
index, smoke generation, self and flash ignition tem-
perature testing.
Chapter 4 Electrical Properties of Polymeric
Materials: Includes property tables; ASTM/UL and
ISO/IEC standards comparison, dielectric constant,
dissipation factor, volume and surface resistivity, and
dielectric strength testing. Hot-wire and high-amper-
age arc ignition testing. High-voltage arc tracking,
arc resistance, and comparative track index testing.
Glow wire and hot mandrel testing. How to read and
interpret the UL yellow cards, and UL electrical insu-
lation systems.
Chapter 5 Physical Properties of Polymeric
Materials: Includes property tables; ASTM and ISO
standards comparison, specific gravity, density, opti-
cal, water absorption, surface hardness, abrasion and
tear resistance, coefficient of friction, and mold
shrinkage testing.
xvii
xviii Preface

Chapter 6 Microbial, Weather, Chemical Resis- tests. Outdoor weathering testing. Chemical resistance
tance of Polymeric Materials: Includes fungal and testing and tables.
bacteria resistance testing. Weathering resistance
tables. Weathering effects caused by creep, UV radia- E. Alfredo Campo
tion, temperature, moisture, oxidation, and micro- El Paso, Texas
organisms. Several types of accelerated weathering November 2007