Craze layer, strain

If the craze layer extends with complete lateral constraint, the strain in the craze is related to the change in its density. From a relationship between density and refractive index, an equation between strain in the craze and its refractive index can be derived. Although it is usual to start with the Lorenz-Lorentz equation, this may not be the correct relationship for a material having the structure of the craze (9). For the present purposes a linear relationship is assumed. The error introduced is at most 10% and only a few percent for the stretched craze with a high void content. 

Figure 8 shows the SEM images with a low level of strain (50%). It is clear that even with a low-strain level defects are initiated in the sulfur cured system with the formation of large cracks at the boundary layer between the two phases. However, in the peroxide cured system the mechanism of crack initiation is very different. In the latter case the NR-LDPE interface is not the site for crack initiation. In this case, stress due to externally applied strains is distributed throughout the matrix by formation of fine crazes. Furthermore, such crazes are developed in the continuous rubber matrix in a direction... 

Under conditions where chain mobility is high enough, typically at high temperature and low strain rate, the loss of entanglement in the active layer at the craze-bulk interface can occur by chain disentanglement, resulting in chain disentanglement craze (CDC). 

A more recent hypothesis is that the craze tip breaks up into a series of void fingers by the Taylor meniscus instability - . Such instabilities are commonly observed when two flat plates with a layer of liquid between them are forced apart or when adhesive tape is peeled from a solid substrate jjjg hypothesis in the case of a craze is that a wedge-shaped zone of plastically deformed and strain softened polymer is formed ahead of the craze tip (Fig. 3 a) this deformed polymer constitutes the fluid layer into which the craze tip meniscus propagates whereas the undeformed polymer outside the zone serves as the rigid plates which constrain the fluid. As the finger-like craze tip structure propagates, fibrils... 

An alternative model is shown schematically in Fig. 10. Just as for the craze tip, the strain-softened polymer being actively deformed at the bulk polymer interface is idealized as a thin layer of non-Newtonion fluid. The velocity v of plastic advance of the craze interface depends on the gradient in hydrostatic tension Van as... 

To examine craze microstructure, and to study the effect of molecular variables on craze morphology, the method described by Kramer was followed. Samples of polymers were cast in the form of thin films, strained in tension while bonded to carbon-coated grids, and examined in the transmission electron microscope either before or after staining. The TEM observations were made with an Hitachi HU-11 A unit or with a JEOL JEM-IOOCX unit, operating usually at 75-80 kV. Fracture surfaces of many bulk samples were coated with a thin layer of gold-palladium and examined by an Etec scanning electron microscope. 

Ideally, crazing is a form of plastic deformation of a linear-chain glassy polymer whereby under a tensile stress a slender polymer layer undergoes a uniaxial planar dilatational transformation ej producing a uniaxial strain c in the direction of the tensile stress, in proportion to the volume fraction c of transformed polymer, i.e.,... 

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