Automotive Plastics and Polymers Physical Testing

The material characteristics of polymer and plastic materials are very important for the automotive industry, as small deviations in preferred specifications can impact processability, behaviour during life-time, degradation, material characteristics, optical appearance and other important material properties. 

Intertek tests automotive plastic materials on physical, thermal, surface and mechanical characteristics. Our experts provide accurate test data on your automotive polymer and plastics materials physical characteristics, from a single test to full screening programs. Intertek physical testing laboratories operate under quality standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 17025, A2LA and UKAS. Testing is performed according to international, OEM specific, in-house or custom standards.

Physical, mechanical, thermal and optical testing to determine automotive polymers and plastics characteristics include

• Tensile strength and modulus (e.g. DIN EN ISO 527)
• Flexural strength and modulus (e.g. DIN EN ISO 178)
• Impact testing (e.g. DIN EN ISO 179 (Charpy), ASTM D256, ASTM D4812, ISO 180 (Izod), PV3905)
• Hardness (e.g. ISO 868)
• Compressive strength (e.g. ASTM D695, ISO 604)
• Flammability (e.g. TL 1010)
• Wear / Abrasion testing (e.g. ASTM D1044, ASTM D3389, ASTM D4060)
• Scratch resistance (e.g. PV 3952)
• Density (e.g. ISO 1183, DIN 53479)
• Melt Flow Index / Melt Flow Rate (e.g. ISO 1133)
• CLTE (e.g. ISO 11359, ASTM E228)
• Vicat (e.g. ISO 306, ASTM D1525)
• VEM (e.g. ISO 6603)
• HDT (e.g. ISO 78)
• Melting temperature (e.g. ISO 11357, ISO 3146)
• Colour fastness (e.g. PV 1303)
• Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) (e.g. ISO 11357)
• Dynamic Mechanical Analyses (DMA) (e.g. ASTM D5279)