Why Heat Treat Acrylic and Plexiglass?

Heat Treatment of Acrylic and Plexiglass

All cast and extruded plastic materials will carry internal stress. To ensure stable dimensions and a long life for precision component parts, it is essential that materials are correctly heat treated to remove all material stress.

On material such as acrylic, it is necessary to heat treat the material to a temperature of 140⁰C and to cool slowly under controlled condition. This initial heat treatment, or normalising process, will result in material shrinkage of between 2% and 4%.

All plastic materials used by Carville are fully heat treated before any machining operations take place. Subject to the material or component size, these heat treatment processes can require anywhere between 24 and 96 hours.