Resins... Film thickness... Tensile strength... Impact resistance... What do these terms mean for you when buying your polyethylene bags?

If you're not a poly salesman and have a degree in Plastics Engineering, the terminology used in the probably makes your mind spin. To work with you, we've created Polyethylene Packaging 101.

Resins (Understood to be: Any of numerous physically similar polymerized synthetics or chemically modified natural resins including thermoplastic materials like polyvinyl, polystyrene, and polyethylene and thermosetting materials including polyesters, epoxies, and silicones which are used in combination with fillers, stabilizers, pigments, as well as other components in order to create plastics.)

It may seem overwhelming with all the different resins available today. How does one choose when you have octene, metalocene, butene, hexene, etc... An experienced sales rep should be able to help know what grade to use. Each grade has different characteristics and choices needs to be according to applications. Understanding resin properties is important in formulating the correct product on your specific application.

Film Thickness (Gauge)

Polyethylene film thickness is measured by thousandths of an inch, or milli-inch. The thickness with the bag doesn't necessarily correlate into strength. A heavy gauge bag is not always strong. Usually it is just a blend of resin grade and gauge relative to the application form. A couple mil octene linear bag may have more strength when compared to a 2 mil butene linear.



Tensile Strength vs. Impact Resistance

Tensile strength could be the maximum stress a material can withstand while being stretched or pulled before breaking. Why is this important?
It is critical to possess a plastic bag that is certainly strong enough to your application. A plastic bag that holds 50 pounds of cloth must have adequate tensile strength, otherwise the bag find yourself breaking.

Impact resistance is a material's capability to resist shock loading. Simply what does this suggest?
Basically it does not take film's ability to resist being punctured. A punctured bag could lead to contaminated goods or product loss.

In choosing the correct gauge and resin formula it is very important consider how tensile strength and impact resistance are strongly related your packaging application. A good example that everyone can connect with is often a garbage bag. I'm certain they have got had failure inside a garbage bag whether or not it breaks when lifting out from the can (tensile strength) or waste materials punctures holes in it (impact resistance). Effortlessly these variables in picking the right formula to your polyethylene package, creating a knowledgeable salesman is vital.

Who knew there was so much to understand about making Polyethylene "Film and Bags"!?!

More details about polyethylene film go to see our new webpage.