Polymer Diagnostic

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Polymer Diagnostics

Polymer testing/Polymer diagnostic and Polymer diagnostic/Damage analysis but also Plastics testing and plastics diagnostics

Polymer diagnostics refers to a modern field of knowledge that is often used in the literature as ‘polymer testing/polymer diagnostics’ or ‘plastic diagnostics/damage analysis’ from the point of view of an epistemological deepening. There is a close connection with ‘material diagnostics/material testing’, which is an independent scientific discipline concerned with clarifying the properties of special materials and the causes of possible failure (see also: fracture mechanics).

In the sense of medical diagnostics, material diagnostics is the science of recognising material damage (imperfections; discontinuities) and micromechanical deformation and fracture mechanisms. Polymer diagnostics involves the interaction of physical examination methods to clarify the material composition (analytics), molecular structure, morphology, mechanical, thermal, electrical and optical properties, manufacturing and processing conditions as well as the technological properties and reactions of the material with the environment.

Particular progress in terms of gaining knowledge has been made in the further development of hybrid methods of plastics diagnostics, which refers to the coupling of two or more different, mostly non-destructive, test procedures and test methods for modern polymer testing.

Electronic instrumentation of conventional test methods is often used to gain information for comparison with conventional methods, whereby more detailed statements can be derived from the characteristic values on the one hand and clearer references to coupled non-destructive test methods can be established using regulated test algorithms on the other.

Examples of this include:

• Instrumented hardness testing ‒ Method & material parameters
• Instrumented Charpy impact test (ICIT)
• Instrumented tensile impact test (ITIT)
• Instrumented puncture impact test

which have also been confirmed by numerous in-house scientific publications (see: electronic instrumentation).

In addition to increasing the information content of conventional testing methods, the aim of hybrid methods is to provide a generalisable clarification of the relationships between the microstructure and the properties, a quantitative evaluation of structure–property correlations and the establishment of physically based functionalities.

Another internationally important trend is the increased endeavour to integrate online testing methods for materials and polymer diagnostics into the respective production processes in order to optimally ensure the quality requirements of the product and the manufacturing process. In this context, one speaks of a product-related adaptation of material testing methods for plastics resulting from the complex structure of modern materials.

The Chair of Materials Diagnostics/Materials Testing (Head: Prof. Dr rer. nat. habil. Wolfgang Grellmann) made numerous methodological and material-related contributions to the further development of polymer diagnostics between 1995 and 2014. The inclusion of experimental methods of fracture mechanics and non-destructive material testing was a particular methodological focus. Particular methodological research focuses on the in-situ coupling of mechanical and fracture mechanics experiments with non-destructive methods, such as

• Coupling of the tensile test under static loading with the laser extensometry method

• Coupling acoustic emission and thermography with the tensile test on a statically loaded CT-specimen or multipurpose test specimen

• Coupling of the bending test with the damage-sensitive acoustic emission analysis

• Coupling of the instrumented Charpy impact test (ICIT) with the acoustic emission analysis (SEA)

• In-situ tensile test in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)

The aim of the in-situ coupling of different test methods is always to increase the informative value of classic test methods and to derive possibilities for quantifying damage states or damage limit values and new types of polymer-specific parameters, such as the technical term “heterogeneity”, which has been introduced into the scientific literature.

See also

• Fracture mechanics
• Instrumented Charpy impact test (ICIT)
• Instrumented tensile impact test (ITIT)
• Micromechanics & Nanomechanics

References

• Grellmann, W., Seidler, S. (Eds.): Kunststoffprüfung. Carl Hanser Munich (2025) 4th Edition, pp. 1–5 (ISBN 978-3-446-44718-9; e-Book: ISBN 978-3-446-48105-3; see AMK-Library under A 23)

• Grellmann, W., Seidler, S. (Eds.): Polymer Testing. Carl Hanser Munich Vienna (2022), 3rd Edition (ISBN 978-1-56990-806-8; e-book: 978-1-56990-807-5; see AMK-Library under A 22)

• Grellmann, W., Seidler, S. (Eds.): Deformation and Fracture Behavior of Polymers. Springer Berlin Heidelberg (2001), (ISBN 3-540-41247-6; see AMK-Library under A 7)

• Grellmann, W., Seidler, S. (Eds.): Deformation and Bruchverhalten von Kunststoffen. Springer Berlin Heidelberg (1998), (ISBN 3-540-63671-4; see AMK-Library under A 6)

• Grellmann, W., Langer, B. (Eds.): Deformation and Fracture Behavior of Polymer Materials. Springer Series in Materials Science 247, Springer Berlin Heidelberg (2017) (ISBN 978-3-319-41877-3; e-book: ISBN 978-3-319-41879-7; see AMK-Library under A 19) https://springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-41879-7

• Grellmann, W., Seidler, S. (Eds.): Mechanical and Thermomechanical Properties of Polymers. Group VIII Advances Materials and Technologies, Polymer Solids and Polymer Melts Volume VIII/6A3, Landolt-Börnstein, Springer 2014, (Hardcover: ISBN 978-3-642-55165-9; e-book: ISBN 978-3-642-55166-6; see AMK-Library under A 16)

• Grellmann, W., Heinrich, G., Kaliske, M., Klüppel, M., Schneider, K., Vilgis, T.: Fracture Mechanics and Statistical Mechanics of Reinforced Elastomeric Blends. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2013 (ISBN 978-3-642-37909-3, see AMK-Library under A 14)

• For more books on plastics testing and technical fracture mechanics of plastics and composites, see AMK-Library