Application Studies / Film Testing ASTM D882 vs TA108s-5i

Film Testing ASTM D882 vs TA108s-5i

Industry:

Films

Adhesives

Pharmaceutical

Packaging

Cosmetic

Attributes measured:

tensile strength

hardness

firmness

burst strength

resilience

extensibility

young's modulus

stiffness

Background

A current standard testing method for films like plastic wraps and adhesive tape backings is the ASTM D882 test. This testing method involves mounting strips of film between two clamps and then pulling in tension until the product fails. Unfortunately a wide variety of factors can impact the results including the quality of cut sample edges, clamp type used, parallelism of sample mounting, and excessive pre-test sample handling. Clamps can create weak spots in the samples causing them to fail at the mount, resulting in many replicates which need to be discarded. Imprecise sample preparation can influence the results creating data that does not always accurately describe the films themselves. Because D882 results are so sensitive to sample preparation and presentation it is an extremely time consuming test for operators. Even with the method’s drawbacks, the D882 is a common test that can easily be executed using Stable Micro System’s TA.XTPlus Texture Analyzer This application study compares four brands of materials that were tested using the ASTMD882 standard method and also with TTC’s special TA-108S-5i fixture for burst and resilience tests. The TA-108S-5i puncture method excels at testing the physical characteristics of films and better differentiates physical properties of films than the D882 tensile test.