Fogging testing measures how much volatile material an interior component releases when it heats up. The released volatile substances condense on the inside of the windshield as a haze. Interior components including, plastics, foams, and trim are tested for fogging to keep that condensation within specification. What Fogging Is On a hot day, interior materials…
Vicat softening point and heat deflection temperature both describe how a plastic behaves as it heats up, but they answer different design questions. One tells you when a surface starts to give. The other tells you when a part carrying a load starts to sag. Two Numbers a Designer Reads Differently When a plastic part…
Salt spray and corrosion testing measure how long a coated or plated automotive part resists rust and degradation in a corrosive environment. The most common method is neutral salt spray (ASTM B117), and CASS (ASTM B368) is a more aggressive variant for decorative coatings. What Corrosion Testing Measures Automotive parts face road salt, moisture, and…
When a bonded joint breaks in a test, the number it gives up is only half the result. The other half is the fracture surface itself, which tells you why it broke and what to fix. Shear and peel testing are the two ways to load a bond, but the real diagnostic value is in…
Accelerated weathering testing uses a controlled chamber to reproduce years of outdoor exposure in a matter of weeks to months. For automotive materials, the most common approach is xenon arc, which reproduces the full spectrum of sunlight along with heat and moisture. What Accelerated Weathering Testing Is Materials degrade in service. Sunlight breaks down polymers,…
FMVSS 302 is the U.S. federal standard that governs how fast interior automotive materials are allowed to burn. A material passes when its horizontal burn rate does not exceed 102 mm per minute, or when it stops burning before it reaches the timing zone. What FMVSS 302 Actually Measures FMVSS 302 (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety…
Ghesquiere Plastic Testing, Inc. (GPTesting) | 20450 Harper Avenue, Harper Woods, MI 48225 | A2LA Accredited | Certificate No. 0079.01 | ISO/IEC 17025:2017 | info@gptesting.com | 313-885-3535 | gptesting.com Environmental exposure testing for Q3 automotive program launches must be scheduled in April and May. UV xenon weathering programs run one to twelve weeks. Humidity conditioning…
Ghesquiere Plastic Testing, Inc. (GPTesting) | 20450 Harper Avenue, Harper Woods, MI 48225 | A2LA Accredited | Certificate No. 0079.01 | ISO/IEC 17025:2017 | info@gptesting.com | 313-885-3535 | gptesting.com A coating that passes weathering, humidity, and salt spray testing can still fail after launch. The failure mode is delamination or chipping, and it shows up…
A seat fabric and a painted instrument panel both wear. But a Taber abrasion wheel grinding across a fabric specimen is not simulating what happens when a driver slides in and out of a car seat every day. And a Martindale rub tester tracking a Lissajous pattern across a coated panel is not capturing the…
Most engineers understand that a single hot soak or cold exposure can reveal whether a material survives a temperature extreme. Fewer understand why a part can pass both of those tests and still fail in the field. The answer is the transition. Temperature cycling testing measures what happens when a material is forced to move…
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