TWI Industrial Member Report Summary 390/1989
M J Day and M F Gittos
Scope
The technology of plastics welding has developed ahead of techniques for assessment of weld quality. This report, the first from a project intended to correlate structure, properties and welding parameters, describes initially the evaluation of techniques for light microscopy of welds in thermoplastics and subsequently the use of transmitted light microscopy for the examination of a series of vibration welds produced to have a range of strength. Scanning electron microscopy was used to assess samples which had been subjected to chemical etching and mechanical tests.