A study of the tension behavior of polycarbonate (PC) under room temperature and various sustained loads is presented. Time-dependent axial elongations and transverse contractions of the specimen were simultaneously measured at nine different stress levels, from 15.89 to 59.4 MPa, and modeled according to a time-stress superposition principle. The test duration was only one hour. It was shown that creep compliance vs. log time curves at different stresses can be horizontally shifted to form a smooth master curve for one year at a reference stress of 30.97 MPa. Moreover, the stress shift factors for axial extension creep curves and transverse contraction creep curves are found to be identical for the stress levels considered, and this is verified using the Poisson's ratio measurements. (c) 2006 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.