Standards for Polymer Testing: Fid-Bau Portal

Standards for Polymer Testing

Swallowe, G. M.

Abstract There are three main types of standards 1) Measurement standards 2) Product specification standards and 3) Systems standards. Measurement standards are designed to ensure consistency in measurement and are maintained by National Laboratories where reference standards and calibrated measuring instruments are kept. These are used to provide the standards against which calibration service providers can refer their instruments and in order to provide a national calibration and certification service. Product specification standards form the largest group of standards and cover materials, testing methods, terminology, safety, dimensions and tolerances etc. The purpose of these specification standards is to provide a means of ensuring compatibility and objective comparisons between different materials and products. Systems standards cover such aspects as how to maintain and install equipment, quality inspection etc. From the point of view of this volume the most relevant standards are the group loosely defined as product specification standards. These will include standard tests for strength, ductility, thermal properties etc. Use of these standard test methods not only provides information which enables comparisons between different materials to be made but also comparisons between batches of nominally the same material from different manufacturers.