How to Reduce Environmental Stress Cracking - Rule of Thumb for Plastic Part Design & Material Selection

In this blog post, I present to you another helpful rule of thumb for plastics part design and material selection. 

Among the causes of plastics part failure, environmental stress cracking (ESCR) leads the part failure ranking list with 30% of all cases [1]. Therefore it is essential to consider ESCR in the early part design phase. The resistance towards stress cracking can be effective influenced by the base polymer, the part design itself, careful consideration of chemicals in the part system, and proper processing. High performance polymers such as PPSU have an inherently good resistance towards ESCR. 

Main strategy is to remove or reduce one of the three legs of the ESC-triangle shown in the rule of thumb: 

Check out my short training video on this topic as well: 

Thank you for reading & #findoutaboutplastics 

Greetings, 

Herwig Juster 

Other Rule of Thumb posts: 

Rule of Thumb for Injection Moulding - " What happens in the cavity..."

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Literature: 

[1] Failure of Plastics and Rubber Products Causes Effects and Case Studies Involving Degradation; D.C. Wright, 2001, Rapra Technology Ltd.