Lab Testing

At Consult2Bond Inc., we work with our manufacturers and lab partners to test your substrates in their facility and present test results with tape recommendations. By doing this, we ensure you are using the best suited product for your application. All this support comes at absolutely no cost to our customers. The result of innovation in plastics, metals & recycled materials is new substrates used in manufacturing. If there are new materials you are using in a project and are not sure of the tape to be used, we can help test your materials in our partners or third-party certified labs.

PSTC (Pressure Sensitive Tape Council) and ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) are helpful adhesive test methods in order to test or evaluate adhesive tapes. These tests are important in order to find the right product for your application. The most common performance measures are Tack, Peel and Shear Adhesion. All these adhesion properties are such as tack, peel strength and holding power become handy control tests. PSA is little tough and it’s not easy to find a specific product fit for project/application. But all these components become an important tool for quality departments.

The 4 primary reasons for testing products are Product Development, Quality Assurance, Product Change and Problem Solving. A most common factor in need for testing is either trying to prevent a failure or find a solution for failure and make it successful. There are various reasons why bonds fail, not only due to the PSA adhesives but other reasons like use of right product, Surface Prep or Processes: -

1. Stress:- Chemical, Electrical, Mechanical
2. Environment:- Substrate, Outdoor Exposure to UV, Ambient Conditions
3. Temperature:- High Temperatures accelerate physical changes and chemical processes as oxidation
4. Time:-An y of these factors will affect the product or process time

For all these situations, standard tests methods are used for starting level. Quality assurance test methods follow these standard procedures to provide comparison data. The most common pressure sensitive adhesive test methods are: - Tack, Peel Strength and Shear Adhesion or Holding Power.

Tack: -This test is for determining the adhesion of an adhesive to a surface or you can say measuring the ability of a tape to make permanent bond during the initial contact of an adhesive with the substrate without any external pressure. This test is for measuring the ageing on the tape. A sample of an adhesive is applied on the substrate and weight is added. Then sensors will measure the peel of tape time. This procedure is completed under several temperature conditions to determine the ageing of the tape. There are different ways to measure the tack level according to the application. Loop tack, rolling ball tack are the common tests for tack test. In Loop Tack test, a loop is created with the PSA material to contact the substrate and then ends are clamped together in an upper direction. Loop is pushed onto the surface, compressing adhesive. And, then loop is pulled up and debonds from substrate. Rolling Ball tack is sensitive to set-up variation and finds the best in quality assurance for determining the process issues. Rollin ball test also provide information on softness as distance in inversely proportional to thickness and softness.

Peel Adhesion: - Peel Adhesion test is specifically to measure the adhesion of the tape. This test is to evaluate the force required to peel off the pressure sensitive tape from the testing panels (any material/substrate). In this test, a tape sample is applied onto a specific surface with defined amount of pressure. And, keeping it as it is for controlled time-period. After that time period, tape is peeled off with machines in order to measure the force needed. This test is a good indicator of relative adhesion strength from one tape to another.

Shear Adhesion Test: - This is the standard test for examining the cohesive strength of an adhesive. In this test, samples are applied with loaded weights on test panel. Then peel off time is measured by the sensors. This test is performed under several temperature conditions. If an adhesive failure occurs, then this test will become more of a holding power test.

ASTM test standards, 2 most common tests under these standards: - ASTM D3330-04 – standard test method for peel adhesion of PST and ASTM D3359-22 – for measuring adhesion. Please see information below for these 2 tests as what these tests are, why and when we do these tests and procedures to do these tests.

ASTM D3359-22, is a standard test method measuring the adhesion by tape test. In this test, adhesion of coating films applied to metallic substrate and removal of PST over the cuts made on the film. Under this test method we are using 2 test methods:

• Test Method A (X-Cut Test): - In this test, X-cut made through the film on the substrate and PST is applied over the cut and then removed.
• Test B (Crosscut Test): - Objective is same for this test, only the cut through film to the substrate are in different pattern with 10-11 cuts in each direction. And, the PST is applied on these cuts and removed.

Both of these tests are considered as the variants of tape and peel test. Crosscut test is consider to be non-suitable for thicker films than 5mils.

ASTM D3330-04, covers the measurement of peel adhesion of PST. This test includes 6 test methods depending on specific test and test type used for determining the adhesion of PST. See below all six test procedures: -

• Test Method A, is for single-coated tapes. A strip of tape is applied with controlled pressure on test panel and then peel off the tape from test panel at 180 degrees. Force required to effect peel is measured.
• Test Method B, is for measuring the adhesion to backing of single coated tapes. For this method, a tape strip is applied to a panel and another tape strip is applied on the backing of first applied tape and tested for peel adhesion as described in Method A.
• Test Method C, is for double-coated tapes. For Face Side Testing, a tape is applied on the stainless-steel panel with liner side up. Then, liner is removed and exposed adhesive is covered with a polyester film strip (0.025-mm thick). Resulting tape is tested as described in Test A. For Liner Side Testing, a face side adhesive is applied to polyester film and liner is removed and the tape is applied adhesive down to steel panel. The remaining test will follow the same procedure as Test A.
• Test Method D, is for adhesion to liner. A tape is applied to standard steel panel with the liner side up and then the liner is peeled off from the adhesive following the same way as Method A.
• Test Method E, is for measuring the adhesion for adhesive transfer tapes. For face side testing, tape is applied to a standard panel and liner is removed, 0.025mm thick polyester film is applied to form a film-backed strip of tape. Then, adhesion is measured as described in method A. For Liner Side, transfer tape is applied to a polyester film strip (0.025mm thick), liner is removed and resulting tape’s adhesion is measured as mentioned in method A.
• Test Method F, is almost similar to Test Method A. This test intends for testing single-coated tape at 90-degree peel. Under this method, a strip of tape is applied to standard testing panel with controlled pressure. The tape is peeled from the panel at 90-degree angle at specified rate and force is needed to measure the peel effect.