**2.3 Aging conditions**

For studying the effect of aging, two different batches were prepared. One batch of ASTM tensile bars were kept inside an environmental chamber with temperature cycling from 20–60°C. Transfer time of 7 minutes and soak time of 23 minutes were set so that the length of 1 cycle is equal to an hour. At each interval (100, 200 and 300 cycles), 5 tensile bars were taken out of the chamber and tensile-tested in a universal tensile testing machine. Profile for thermal cycling is shown in **Figure 2(a)**. Similarly, the second batch of samples were placed in an environmental chamber for high temperature and high humidity exposure. The profile was set so that peak temperature and humidity reached 60 2°C and 90 3%RH, with ramp up and ramp down time of 2 hours according to the high temperature and humidity profile shown in **Figure 2(b)**. As in the thermal cycling test, at each interval (168, 336 and 500 cycles), 5 tensile bars were taken out of the high temperature and high humidity chamber, dimensions measured (width and thickness) and tensile tested. After


#### **Table 1.**

*List of samples.*


**Table 2.** *Different aging condition.* *Effect of Environmental Aging on Tensile Properties of Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR)… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99528*

**Figure 1.** *(a) Schematic of an ASTM tensile bar (type V)6 and (b) experimental set-up.*

tensile testing for all the samples were completed, the fracture surfaces were inspected in optical microscopy and with a scanning electron microscope.
