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Plastic Tubing Terms

Crazing – Small cracks close to the surface of plastic.
 
Ductility – The amount of strain that plastic can handle before breaking.
 
Expansion – The process in which the diameter of a tube is enlarged while its wall thickness is reduced. This process is often used to create heat shrinkable tubing.
 
Extrusion – A process in which a solid plastic resin is melted and pushed by a screw through a heating chamber.
 
Fish Eyes – A small mass in a transparent material, such as plastic, created by incomplete blending.
 
Flaring – A process in which mechanical pressure works to increase the diameter of a tube from the inside.
 
Jacket – The outer part of a heat shrinkable tube’s dual wall.
 
Latex – A solution also referred to as rubber that usually consists of water and polymer.
 
Liner – The inner part of a heat shrinkable tube’s dual wall.
 
Polymerization – A process typically carried out by a catalyst in which a large number of simple molecules combine to form a more complex, chain-like compound (polymer).
 
Polystyrene – A flammable, transparent plastic that is an excellent electrical and thermal insulator because of its high strength and impact resistance.
 
Polyurethane – A general term for a broad class of thermoplastic polymers that have good resistance to solvents and abrasion and can be either solid or foam (cellular).
 
Pultrusion – A process that produces reinforced plastic shapes with constant cross sections by pulling the reinforcing fibers, wetted by a thermoset resin mix, through a heated steel die.
 
Shore Hardness – Scale used to measure the hardness of an object. Although there are different scales (plastic tubing uses the “A” scale), they are consistent in that the larger the number, the harder the object.
 
Strain Relief – A process in which tubing is used as an outer cover for an object in order to reduce the stress that is being placed on the object by providing additional support and stiffness.
 
Stress Cracks – Small cracks, typically found in clusters, which occur in plastics due to mechanical stress.
 
Thermoset – A material that remains hardened, even when reheated, due to its having undergone a chemical reaction.
 
VW 1 – A rating given to highly-flame retardant tubing by the Underwriter’s Laboratories (UL).