ISO 22088-6:2006 describes a procedure for assessing the environmental stress cracking (ESC) susceptibility of polymeric materials in chemical environments by slowly increasing the strain applied to a tensile specimen at a constant rate.

It is applicable to test specimens prepared by moulding and/or machining and can be used to assess the relative ESC susceptibility of a material exposed to different environments or the relative ESC susceptibility of different plastics exposed to a specific environment.

This is essentially a ranking test and is not intended for the provision of design data.

The principle advantage of the test compared with the test methods described in Parts 2 to 5 of ISO 22088 is the rapidity with which the ESC susceptibility of a particular polymer/environment combination can be assessed.