Environmental stress corrosion
(ESC) of plastics

All materials are affected by the environments that they are exposed to. NPL can provide research, testing and consultancy on the environmental durability of polymeric materials and polymeric composites using a range of equipment including:

• Temperature (-55 °C to 350 °C)
• Water immersion baths (23 °C to 100 °C)
• Hot/humidity chambers (23 °C to 100 °C, 10 to 95%)
• Steam autoclave (1 bar/100 °C to 2.2 bar/136 °C)
• Immersion autoclave (200 bar, 23 °C to 80 °C)
• Chemical exposure (all liquids, ESC)
• Gamma irradiation
• Moisture content
• Thermal cycling