Improving the consistency of environmental stress cracking resistance testing for polyethylenes

Abstract This paper explores a novel modification to the Bell Test (ASTM‐D1693) for minimizing its variability in failure time by the introduction of heat notching. The new notching technique for assessing environmental stress cracking resistance was evaluated with four different grades of polyethylene and compared to results using the ASTM standard for notching. Differences in both the failure time and the associated variability were witnessed …