Designing for impact: Why electronics engineers rely on tensile impact data to guide material choice

Here, Andrea Incardona, Material Engineer at Instron, explores how tensile impact testing helps engineers simulate real-world conditions, spot weaknesses before failure, and build safer, more reliable products.

Electronic materials like thin polymer films, adhesives or ceramics demand precise testing. Even minor cutting defects during specimen preparation or alignment errors during testing can skew results beyond expected performance tolerances.

In contrast, large automotive components must improve crash energy absorption and reduce vehicle weight. The carbon fibre-reinforced polymers (CFRP) or aluminium-plastic composites used often behave unpredictably under high strain rates, making mechanical characterisation difficult for real-world conditions, such as crash events.

Real-world environmental conditions introduce additional variables during material characterisation testing. Dashboards and phone casings, for example, experience thermal swings from intense summer heat to freezing winter mornings. These fluctuations affect material properties and must be taken into account.

Test setup is critical. Some plastics deform gradually under stress, while others fail suddenly. Gripping methods, specimen geometry and impact velocities must reflect real-world conditions. A test that doesn’t simulate field conditions may miss critical weaknesses.

Read the full article in DPA's November 2025 issue