The Increasing Complexity of Material Selection
Choosing the right material for an application is a critical step in the product development process. Selecting the correct resin helps control product cost, can elevate a brand’s reputation, and enhance product performance that avoids costly failures. As the number of commercially available plastic materials continues to grow and applications become more demanding, material selection has become increasingly complicated.
The list of available material options can feel overwhelming, but our experts bring knowledge across a wide range of industries to help simplify the interrelated nature of material behavior, product requirements, and design considerations, to get material selection right.
Beyond the Datasheet: Why Standard Reviews Fall Short
At The Madison Group, we understand that standard datasheet reviews only provide a baseline, and often lack the data required to design and optimize your product or assembly.
Our distinct advantage is the depth of our polymer expertise, which goes beyond published data. We have cultivated a comprehensive understanding of nuanced material benefits and challenges through years of rigorous testing and failure analysis.
The Madison Group can help you navigate through this complex process, weeding out materials that will not work, while providing candidate materials that will last a lifetime.
The Holistic Perspective: Connecting Design, Processing, and Performance
This knowledge allows us to look beyond basic material properties to understand how processing and design will influence a material’s behavior, such as for the case of warpage or mechanical anisotropy. This holistic perspective is critical because so much of a plastic part’s performance is tied to its design and manufacturing.
Broad Expertise Across Diverse Industries and Polymers
We also bring broad expertise across a wide range of materials, including less common or niche polymers. While material suppliers and design engineers often have experience limited to the polymer types they have historically used, our work spans diverse industries like industrial, medical, water management, consumer goods, and automotive. This gives us familiarity with a much wider variety of polymers and helps ensure we are selecting the right resin for your application. Furthermore, staying informed and impartial about new polymer developments —allows us to look even at the lead edge of material options.
The Chemistry of Plastics: Evaluating Polymers, Additives, and Reinforcements
When evaluating multiple options, our goal is to balance performance requirements, properties, and cost to provide you with the best possible solution. Our materials knowledge span not only thermoplastics, but also thermosets and rubbers.
Plastics are a unique recipe of polymers, additives, reinforcements, and fillers, with each ingredient serving a specific purpose. Additives can be incorporated to enhance properties like impact resistance or to protect a material from the harmful environmental effects of UV rays, chemicals, or heat. Similarly, rubbers and thermosets consist of a base polymeric substance with key added ingredients that control processability, curing behavior, and final performance properties. With an infinite number of possible formulations, it can be difficult to find the perfect material or a suitable replacement. Our experience permits us to evaluate material options quickly and effectively to provide our clients with viable solutions.
Comprehensive Material Support Across the Product Lifecycle
The Madison Group’s services expand beyond just material selection. We support our clients in defining and developing adequate testing methods and internal material specification standards for validating material alternatives. Such verification and standardization helps confirm the materials specified will meet the necessary performance requirements of the application, while allowing flexibility in supply chain. Proper testing and characterization is always a critical step to confirm that datasheet values translate to real-life performance in the actual part geometry. A material that seems like an excellent candidate based on service requirements may be more prone to warpage for a particular design or simply be a resin that is more difficult to process. Our capabilities extend beyond material testing and can extend into product testing services. With our experience, we can help you define and develop proper test methods to validate a material for your specific application, desired manufacturing process, and over the intended product life-cycle.
Engaging with our experts early in the development of a new product can help to avoid costly delays later in the product development cycle. We also understand how frustrating it can be when a previously qualified, perfect material is now being terminated, and a suitable replacement is necessary. Our experience permits us to evaluate material options quickly and effectively to provide viable solutions.
Our Extensive Material Support Services
As polymeric material experts, we provide support for a wide range of materials, including thermoplastics, thermosets, composites, rubbers, and adhesives. Our team can help you with a comprehensive list of material support services, including:
- Material selection
- Supplier selection
- Mechanical property evaluation
- Metal-to-plastic material transitions
- Cost savings initiatives
- Material specification developments
- Technology reviews
- Sustainability initiatives
- Reverse engineering
- Aging and chemical compatibility studies
- Suitable replacements for discontinued or force majeure resins
- Lifetime prediction studies (Creep and Fatigue)
- Quality assurance protocols
By coupling our testing services and expertise when reviewing multiple material options, we can balance performance requirements, properties, and cost to provide you with the best possible solution.
For more information on our testing capabilities and offerings for manufacturing support, please visit:
Frequently Asked Questions
Material Selection & Selection Process
Why should I use a consultant for material selection instead of just using a resin datasheet or resin distributor?
Datasheets provide a snapshot of a material’s properties under idealized lab conditions. In reality, a material’s performance is heavily influenced by part geometry, manufacturing processes (like gate placement), and the specific service environment (temperature, chemicals, UV). We look beyond the datasheet to ensure the material will perform in your actual application. We are also resin agnostic, which allows for an independent look at what is best for your application, not just what is in “our line card”.
At what stage of product development should I seek material support?
The earlier, the better. Selecting the correct material is the foundation for keeping project timelines, ensuring part performance and manufacturability. Engaging our experts during the design phase helps avoid these pitfalls and ensures the design is optimized for the specific polymer’s behavior.
What types of materials does The Madison Group support?
We are experts in a wide range of polymeric materials, including:
- Thermoplastics (Amorphous and semi-crystalline)
- Thermosets
- Elastomers and Rubbers
- Composites
- Adhesives
Testing & Validation
How do you validate that a material is suitable for my part?
With decades of experience in material testing and performance validation, we develop custom protocols to confirm your material meets all application requirements.
Our approach can include mechanical testing, chemical compatibility studies, accelerated aging, and lifetime prediction. This proven methodology ensures your part performs reliably in real-world conditions and won’t fail prematurely in the field.
Can you help me find a replacement for a discontinued or “force majeure” resin and how do I know the materials are equivalent?
Yes. We specialize in evaluating material alternatives quickly. We analyze the properties of the original resin and identify a suitable replacement that balances performance and process requirements with current market availability and cost. Plastics are proprietary recipes, meaning ‘equivalent’ grades often perform differently in practice. We look beyond the datasheet, using our years of polymer experience to identify when targeted testing is necessary to guarantee a material will survive your application’s specific demands.
Do you offer “reverse engineering” for plastic materials?
Yes. If you have a successful part but don’t know the exact “recipe” of the material, we can perform deformulation to identify the polymers, additives, fillers, and reinforcements used.
Manufacturing & Environmental Factors
How does the manufacturing process affect my material choice?
A material that looks perfect on paper might be difficult to process, leading to issues like excessive warpage, high residual stress, or poor fiber orientation. We analyze the intersection of material science and manufacturing to ensure the resin you choose is compatible with your specific molding or assembly processes.
Can you help with environmental compatibility and aging?
Absolutely. We perform compatibility studies to see how materials react to specific chemicals, moisture, and UV exposure. We also conduct “aging” tests to simulate how the material will degrade over its intended service life.
Getting Started
What information do I need to provide for a material consultation?
To give you the best recommendation, it helps to provide your part’s performance requirements, the intended manufacturing process, the expected service environment (temperatures, chemicals, etc.), and any budgetary constraints.
How do I request support for my project?
You can reach out via the Contact page on our website. Whether you are looking for a single material recommendation or a large-scale product development partnership, we can tailor a program to fit your needs.
Inquire Today
At The Madison Group, we are always ready to provide material support in any of the product development stages you may be in. Whether you are developing a new product, improving an existing one, or finding a suitable replacement, we have the experience needed to guide you through this process.
