Product & Packaging Testing

At Stress Engineering Services, our focus is on developing test procedures that will accurately assess the behavior of a product or packaging, determine possible modifications, and provide highly efficient solutions. We cater to a broad range of industries including consumer and medical products, packaging, pharmaceutical, and electronics to name a few. In addition, our staff is experienced with a variety of materials including plastics, metals, composites, glass, and elastomers.

We specialize in measuring a variety of factors that can significantly affect the functionality of products and packaging, including rapid loading rates, varying temperatures, extreme forces, displacement, deflection, acceleration, vibration, cyclic events, and others.

Performance, reliability, and safety are critical to the success of a product or package. We offer a variety of custom services aimed at evaluating these factors, including precision testing for low force and sub-micron displacement, noise and vibration. Our engineers can test unique performance criteria on conventional products or standard criteria on unusual designs, including life cycle, life simulation, extreme environment, and extreme usage.

We provide third party testing services in accordance with API, ASME, ANSI, ASTM and others. Where agency approvals are needed, we can manage outsourcing of those tasks and provide the technical interface.

Functional Verification
Aging, Life Assessment, and Reliability Testing
Human Factors and Ergonomic Evaluation
Materials Characterization and Certification

Force and Displacement Input / Output
Electronics Performance
Fluid / Flow Measurements
Thermal and Impact Performance

Mechanical Testing

Companies in the product and packaging industries are continually developing unique goods that feature new performance-related functions. As a result, there is a need to measure the mechanical performance of such components and packaging to validate the uniqueness of the application.

At Stress Engineering Services, we conduct a variety of tests on products and packaging for evaluating structural response under various manufacturing line, shipping, distribution, storage, and handling loads. With our extensive experience in product/packaging design and analysis, we bring a unique physics-based insight and perspective to interpretation of test results and failure modes.

Instrumented Drop Impact Testing
Custom Test Systems

Fatigue Life Testing for Polymers
Friction Testing

Product / Packaging Material Testing

Stress Engineering Services has developed a wide range of test programs and specialized tools to test and characterize the behavior of materials used in many products and packaging. The test data is collected to establish material behaviors and determine which materials are appropriate to use, and when.

High Strain Rate Tensile Testing (HSRT)

This proprietary test machine, developed by Stress Engineering Services, is capable of testing at rates on the order of 10,000% per second, capturing how stress, strain and ductility at failure are affected by high strain rate events, such as drop impact. Very early in the development process this test can be used to screen candidate material for a particular design application, or to develop material models for predicting failure using non-linear finite element analysis methods.

Elastomer High Frequency Tension/Compression Test Machine

Depending on the required load/displacement, this test machine is capable of cycling a test sample up to 100 hertz. One of the most common applications involves testing of elastomers or other polymers subjected to long term cyclic loading.

Biaxial Tensile Testing (for film and thin materials)

Failures in most plastic products occur under multi-axial stress/strain states. The effect of this stress state is to reduce the ductility of the materials, which becomes the limiting load scenario for design. To collect data for this important material parameter we developed a Biaxial Tensile Test system. This equipment captures the behavior of film and thin materials under biaxial tension. It is used to evaluate materials for drop impact applications and other high strain rate events.

Melt Flow Testing

A melt flow device measures a polymer’s viscosity at elevated temperature. Melt flow rate is a key specification provided by material manufacturers to identify how easily the material can be processed by injection molding or extrusion. The melt flow is directly related to molecular weight of a material, so the test provides a key indication of durability. The test is also useful for determining if a material has been degraded during processing, or if a material substitution has been made.