When testing the properties of a material or component, a range of options are available for examining, reporting and tracking tensile data.

The pervasiveness of rubber and plastic products is hard to overstate. They are everywhere, and they have been around for a while. In the case of rubber, it’s been in use since the early 1800s. While rubber and elastomers (from “elastic polymers”) previously had slightly different meanings, today for all practical purposes they are synonymous. 

Shimadzu Scientific Instruments and Oklahoma State University (OSU) have joined forces to help establish The College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology’s (CEAT) Mechanical and Physical Properties Testing Lab.

Tensile testing is arguably the most common test method used in both force measurement and material testing. Tensile testing is used primarily to determine the mechanical behavior of a component, part or material under static, axial loading.

Pick up a material analysis data sheet and you’ll always find tensile testing, and probably flexural testing as well. But depending on the application, don’t hold your breath looking for compressive testing.

Regular tensile testing is important for checking rigid plastics through the entire manufacturing cycle, from the raw material to the forming process and ultimately the production part.

Whether it’s called a compression tester, tensile tester, dual-column tester or twin-column tester, material testing machines go by many names. So, when users need to find the best machine to test their products, the market can appear to be a difficult one to navigate. 

Not long ago, a manufacturer of needles for medical syringes was in the middle of another shift of quality assurance testing. The test involved three individuals side-by-side, with each grabbing the needles off the line and physically inserting them into a drill “chuck,” piercing a rubber slab to simulate the piercing of human skin.

Younger readers may be surprised to hear that the word plastic was once synonymous with cheap. Maybe that’s why Dustin Hoffman’s character was famously given the career advice to get into plastics in the movie “The Graduate.”

Fatigue testing varies greatly from application to application. Below are some of the top six examples to showcase how fatigue testing has become invaluable in a range of industries.