One of the main difficulties in adequately characterising plastics for the demands of service life is their viscoelastic nature, which makes their response to external stimuli so complex. Recognition of this factor has led to the drafting of standards relating to the measurement of comparable data, and work is still proceeding in this area.

It is in this general context that this Review Report aims to describe recent developments in the major physical testing methods appropriate to thermoplastics, with references to much practical work carried out worldwide.

The authors review is supplemented by some 358 references and abstracts selected from the Polymer Library.