Post by The Madison Group | Plastic Consulting

Is your "safe" design slowly losing its grip? ✋ If you are designing plastic parts using only short-term yield strength data, you might be ignoring a fundamental reality of polymers: they never stop moving. Welcome to Lesson 2 of our June Summer School. This week, Jeffrey A. Jansen is tackling Creep Failure—the permanent deformation of a material under a constant load well below its yield point. Why does this happen? It comes down to viscoelasticity. Unlike metals, polymer chains are long, entangled, and constantly reorganizing. Over time, these chains disentangle, causing the material to "flow" in slow motion. This leads to a decline in apparent modulus and strength, which can eventually result in sudden brittle cracking. Key Technical Takeaways from the Webinar: 🟧 The Margin Trap: A design that looks perfectly safe on day one can lose its safety margin as time, temperature, and strain rate accelerate the creep process. 🟧 Predicting the Future (Faster): We don't have decades to wait for testing. Our session explains how to use Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) and Time-Temperature Superposition (TTS) to model 20 years of behavior in just a few weeks. 🟧 The Reality Check: Remember that projections are only models. You must still account for real-world "accelerants" like UV oxidation or chemical exposure that can change the material's timeline. Stop guessing about the long-term stability of your components. Watch the full on-demand replay to learn how to generate accurate long-term behavior models and protect your designs from the "slow-motion" failure. Watch Lesson 2 - Link to the Creep Failure of Plastics webinar in the comments below. 👇 Also coming this September: Don't miss our live webinar, The Essentials of Plastic Failure, on September 15! #PolymerScience #CreepFailure #EngineeringDesign #MaterialTesting #SummerSchool #Viscoelasticity #DMA

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