Radiation degradation of poly(ethylene terephthalates) and poly(vinyl halides)

New insulating materials and structural plastics, as they become commercially available, have been routinely examined by the Radiation and Nucleonics laboratory of the Westinghouse Materials laboratories. Despite our increasing understanding of the radiation chemistry of organic materials, such investigations often uncover interesting and unsuspected effects. Two brief studies of this sort which were carried out in recent months will be described. The irradiations were carried out with 2 MEV electrons from a Van de Graaff accelerator.