The preparation of the test pieces is an extremely important part of the rubber and plastic testing itself and it must not be the case that the test results reflect the effects of the preparation rather than the properties of the materials being tested. Temperature conditioning of the test material is also an important part of the preparation.
Test pieces are punched out of the test sheets in order to perform tests for tensile strength, tear strength and tension set etc. It is important that sharp punching cutters or dies are used against a soft surface when punching out the test specimens. Punching cutters with poor cutting edges or nicks may cause rupture notches in the test piece and thus produce incorrect results.
Elastocon offers a complete range of precision instruments for sample preparation of rubber and plastic materials:
