Testing System Development for Creep Characterization of Polymers

R. Steinberger1), Sz. Vezer1), Z. Major2), R.W. Lang1,2)

Polymer Competence Center Leoben GmbH, Parkstrasse 11, 8700 Leoben, Austria
2)
Institute of Materials Science and Testing of Plastics, University of Leoben, Franz Josef
Strasse 18, 8700 Leoben, Austria
1)

ABSTRACT
Knowledge about the creep behaviour of polymers is fundamental for the design of parts, first, because many
polymers are subject to low but often long-term loads, second, because of the visco-elastic nature of
polymers, which makes their mechanical behaviour strongly dependent on time and temperature. An
appropriate creep tensile testing system was developed allowing the creep characterization of four
standardized polymer specimens simultaneously for loads up to 2000 N in a temperature range from room
temperature to 150 C. Instrumentation possibilities range from LVTD, strain gauge, clip gauges to
temperature sensors. Furthermore, a custom video extensometer system was developed for the contactless
determination of the true specimen strain data in longitudinal and transverse direction. In this paper, the test
stand and the optical strain measurement system are presented. The data reduction procedure for the
determination of the creep modulus curves, the transverse vs. longitudinal strain curves and the isochronous
stress-strain diagrams is demonstrated on example results for polypropylene.
1

Introduction

Polymer parts are subject to creep loading in many technical applications. Nonetheless, creep data are not
available for many materials because of the time consuming test method as compared to e.g. monotonic
tensile testing. Moreover, it is difficult to find appropriate creep testing systems on the market. For these
reasons, a new creep testing system was developed and implemented, customized to the creep
characterization of polymers and designed for an effective determination of creep data. It was furthermore
required to implement a strain measurement system for the acquisition of true specimen strain measurement.
This request is solved by a video extensometer, which - by the contactless measurement - has the further
advantage that it can measure longitudinal and transverse strain simultaneously (2-D video extensometer)
and does not influence the specimen behaviour like it can be the case with mechanical extensometers.
In the first part of this paper, the creep testing stand, the measurement system and especially the video
extensometer are presented and discussed. In the second part the data reduction scheme is demonstrated on
true video extensometer measurement data.
2
Creep Testing System
2.1 Loading Frame
The loading frame was designed with the following features:

4 loadings units for the simultaneous test of 4 specimens,

tensile and compression loading,
load range up to 2000 N,
maximum possible deformation: 20 mm,
tensile test specimen type: ISO 527-2 1A (multi purpose) and 1B,
Friction- and/or form-locking tensile specimen grips.

The specimen is loaded by weights via a cantilever. The weights can be retained and released by a
mechanical system via a hand wheel. This allows controlled application of the loads on the specimens. The

Temperature
chamber
Cameras

Cantilever

Weights

a)

b)

Figure 1: Creep testing system:(a) Picture of the testing stand and (b) screenshot of the strain analysis
software.
specimen area is enclosed in a temperature chamber, which is designed for temperatures from room
temperature to 150 C. A picture of the fully equipped creep testing stand is shown in Figure 1 a).
2.2

Instrumentation

The creep testing system is equipped with a video extensometer, which is described below, and a
multipurpose data acquisition system based on the 8-channel multi purpose analogue digital converter
Spider 8 from Hottinger Baldwin Messtechnik GmbH, D. The latter can be used for the following measurement
tasks:

Load measurement, using a strain gauge load cell,

displacement measurement using a LVDT,
mechnical strain measurement using a clip on gauge extensometer,
longitudinal and/or transverse strain measurement using specimens which are instrumented with
strain gauges, and
temperature measurement using thermocouples.

Video Extensometer
The 2D-video extensometer hardware consists of four standard CCIR cameras - one per specimen, halogen
lamps for the illumination of the specimens and an image acquisition and analysis system, which again
consisits of a computer system with a frame grabber card and an image acquisition and analysis software,
developed in LabVIEW. The cameras deliver grey scale images of the specimen at a resolution of 768x572
pixels which are saved to the hard disk first. The images can be acquired at a rate of up to 1Hz. The
acquisition rate can be defined as function of time. The image analysis is done in an offline process.
A screenshot of the image analysis software showing also an example image from the camera is given in
Figure 1 b). The longitudinal specimen strain is determined by measuring the distance change between two
marks applied to the specimen (see right half of the camera image). The position of the marks is determined
via the light-dark transition of the edges of the marks. The transverse strain is measured via the light-dark
transition of the specimen to the background. The edge positions are determined by the edge detection
functions of the vision development toolbox of LabVIEW [1]. Each edge is fitted by a line. The gauge length
lmeasured and specimen width b are determined along the symmetry axes of the specimen in the camera image
in pixel units.
Distance changes between specimen and camera result in an apparent size change of the specimen in the
camera image due to the perspective image formation: The object size will increase, when the distance

decreases and vice versa. This effect highly influences the strain results. For this reason the distance change
between camera and specimen is measured in the side view of the specimen. This is realized by positioning a
mirror in the field of view of the camera, so that the front and the side view of the specimen are acquired in the
same image. A sketch of the camera-mirror-specimen configuration is shown in Figure 2. In the camera image
in Figure 1 b) the mirror is in the left half of the image, which then shows the narrow side of the specimen.
This side view now allows the determination of the distance changes. The measured gauge length lmeasured
and specimen width b are corrected by the following equations:

l = l measured (1 + Cz ) and b = bmeasured (1 + Cz ) ,

(1)

where l is the corrected length, b is the corrected specimen width, z is the distance change of the specimen
and C is the correction constant. This procedure only corrects apparent size changes due to movement of the
specimen in camera axis direction. Changes of the angle between the specimen axis and the camera axis are
not considered. For the determination of C a calibration procedure is performed where images are acquired of
an unloaded specimen in different positions. lmeasured and z are determined in the images and C is optimized
in a way so that the changes in l minimize. Example data of the distance change z, lmeasured and the corrected
l data are shown in Figure 3.
The strains are finally calculated by

l =

l
b
1 and t = 1 ,
l0
b0

(2)

where l0 and b0 are the initial gauge length and specimen width.
The upper left diagram in the screenshot in Figure 1 b) shows the measurement data, in this case the gauge
length l. These data are saved to a file along with the specimen width b and time t. The further data reduction
for the determination of the creep modulus curves, the transverse vs. longitudinal strain curves and the
isochronous stress strain diagrams is done in MATLAB. For further information on the data reduction of
tensile creep tests, please refer to [2, 3]. The strain values are calculated from the measured length and width,
creep curves (strain vs. time), creep modulus values and isochronous stress-strain diagrams are generated
from the measurement series.

Mirror

Specimen

Marks

Camera

Figure 2: Sketch of the setup of the video extensometer.

1.004

z
Dz

l, measured
l, corrected

1.003
1.002

Normalized length, -

Distance change z , pixels

1
0
-1
-2

1.001
1
0.999
0.998

-3

0.997

-4

0.996

-5
0

a)

20

40

60

80

Image number

100

20

40
60
Image number

80

100

b)

Figure 3: Distance correction: (a) measured distance change z and (b) measured length lmeasured and
corrected length l.
3

Data Reduction Procedure

The data reduction procedure is presented in this chapter. The example creep data are determined on a glass
bead filled polypropylene (PP). The diagrams presented below show the results of four simultaneously tested
specimens. In one test run, the specimens are preferably exposed to a load series as it is done in the example
presented. The loading units were adjusted to 80, 120, 160 and 200 N resulting in technical stresses of 2, 3, 4
and 5 MPa, respectively, at a specimen cross-section area of 40 mm2. The test temperature is 50 C.
3.1

Measured Strain Data

The measured creep data, longitudinal and transverse strain, are shown as function of time in Figure 4. The
data of the initial 30 s seconds show the unloaded specimen. The specimens are then loaded within 1 to 2
seconds. It can be clearly seen that higher creep loads result in higher strains. The specimen at 5 MPa fails
before the test is terminated. This failure is anticipated by an increasing slope in the longitudinal strain curve.
The video extensometer can now not only be used to determine strain data, but also to characterize the visual
appearance of the specimen during the failure process. Pictures of the specimen at different times of the test
are shown in Figure 5. The images a) and b) show the specimen at the beginning and shortly before the

Pa
5M

2 MP
a

Pa
4M

3M
Pa

a
3 MP

4M
Pa

2 MPa

a)

5M
Pa

b)

Figure 4: Creep measurement result diagrams for various nominal stresses: (a) Longitudinal and (b)
transverse strain vs. time.

a)

b)

c)

d)

e)

Figure 5: Image series of a creep test on a glass bead filled polypropylene: (a) unloaded, (b) shortly before
onset of crazing at t = 6.104 s, (c) crazes at t = 105 s, (d) shortly before failure at t = 1.6 105 s, (e) after failure.
specimen changes the optical appearance at time t = 6.104 s. This time correlates to the onset of the increase
of the slope in the longitudinal strain curve. The following images c) to e) the growth of crazes and final failure.
3.2

Processed Data

The initial data of the creep measurement (unloaded phase and application of load) are removed and the time
data are shifted so that the start of the loading becomes t=0. The results are creep curves for the longitudinal
and transverse strain. The diagrams are shown in Figure 6. The further data reduction comprises the
determination of the creep modulus curves, the transverse vs. longitudinal strain curves and the isochronous
stress strain curves. The results are shown in Figure 7.
4

Conclusion

The creep testing system presented in this paper consists of (i) a four fold loading frame for tensile and
compression loading at temperatures up to 150 C and (ii) a flexible instrumentation concept for the
adaptation of the measurement to the particular test performed. Furthermore, a custom 2D-video extensor

2 MP
a
3M

5 MPa
4 MPa

4M
Pa

3 MPa

2 MPa

a)

b)

Figure 6: Creep strain curves for (a) longitudinal and (b) transverse strain.

Pa

Pa

Pa
2M

creep modulus E, MPa

M
Pa
M
Pa
4
M
P
5M a
Pa

Pa
3M
Pa
4M

a)

Pa

b)

c)
Figure 7: Creep test results: (a) Creep modulus curves, (b) transverse vs. longitudinal strain curves and (c)
isochronous stress-strain curves.
meter system allows the contactless measurement of longitudinal and transverse strain for the determination
of not only creep strain and modulus curves but also transverse-longitudinal strain curves and finally time
dependent Poissons ratio values. With these features, this creep testing system allows an effective testing
procedure. It is successfully used for the creep characterization of polymers in a wide load and temperature
range.
Future improvements and developments will comprise an extension of the temperature range to -20 to 250 C
and the implementation of testing methods with multi-axial stress states such as with notched specimens or
plane strain or confined compression test configurations.
Acknowledgements
The research work of this paper was performed at the Polymer Competence Center Leoben GmbH (PCCL,
Austria) within the framework of the Kplus-program of the Austrian Ministry of Traffic, Innovation and
Technology with contributions from the University of Leoben (Institute of Materials Science and Testing of
Plastics, Austria) and the Borealis GmbH (Austria). The PCCL is funded by the Austrian Government and the
State Governments of Styria and Upper Austria. Thanks are also due to Mr. Gernot Schaffler, who made the
initial design of the creep testing stand.
References
[1]
[2]
[3]

IMAQ Vision - Concepts Manual. 2000 ed. 2000, Austin: National Instruments.
Plastics - Determination of tensile creep. ISO 889, 1981.
Plastics - Determination of tensile properties - Part1: General principles. ISO 527-1, 1993.