Proposal and verification of a thermoplastic surface shear-strength evaluative method

A method for evaluating the surface shear strength of thermoplastics is proposed and validated. Thermoplastics are commonly used for their mass production and solid properties, but their surface properties, specifically friction and wear, are also required in some cases. The surface strength against shear loading, which has not been evaluated quantitatively as a material mechanical property, must be ascertained to elucidate these properties. We propose the overlapped short-beam shear tests to evaluate the surface shear strength of injection-molded thermoplastics. We also perform ball on disk testing to validate the results obtained from the overlapped short beam shear tests. Results show that the surface shear strength obtained from the proposed test is related to the frictional force obtained from the ball on disk tests, thereby validating the proposed method.