EN 826 Determination of Compression Behavior of Thermal Insulation Products

This European Standard specifies the equipment and procedures for determining compression behavior of test specimens. It is applicable to thermal insulating products for building application. It can be used to determine the compressive stress in compressive creep tests and for applications in which insulation products are only exposed to short term loads.

Place the test specimen centrally between the two parallel plates of the testing machine. Compress the test specimen with the movable plate at a constant speed of displacement which shall be d/10 per minute with a tolerance of ± 25 %, where d is the its initial thickness of the test specimen expressed in millimetres. Continue compression until the test specimen yields, providing a compressive strength value, or until a relative deformation of 10 % has been reached, providing a compressive stress at 10 % relative deformation.

We suggest using a tensile testing system of dual-column tabletop design together with the test fixture specimen dependent and selectable.

Test fixture: One set of compression anvils to meet the standard for testing specimens up to 300mm x 300mm. The upper anvil includes having a spherical seat to ensure that only axial force is applied on the test specimen.

Test specimen

• 50mm x 50mm
• 100mm x 100mm
• 150mm x 150mm
• 200mm x 200mm
• 300mm X 300mm

For this test type, we use the specimen protect feature of Bluehill when loading the specimen into the machine to prevent any overloading of specimen during this process prior to test. We then in the test method drive to a preload to eliminate any slack in the specimen then test to failure is carried out. For this test, it is important to have a high-speed intelligent test data sampling rate of 100 Hz to the PC ensure the capture and record of the maximum compressive strength.

We recommend using Bluehill test software package to input specimen parameters, set the desired speed control, automatically calculate the desired results and statistics, and finally to product a test report or send to a network database We suggest reviewing EN826 to fully understand the test fixture and results requirements prior to performing any tests.