Mechanical behavior brittle-ductile transition

Several cautions are, however, in order. Polymers are notorious for their time dependent behavior. Slow but persistent relaxation processes can result in glass transition type behavior (under stress) at temperatures well below the commonly quoted dilatometric or DTA glass transition temperature. Under such a condition the polymer is ductile, not brittle. Thus, the question of a brittle-ductile transition arises, a subject which this writer has discussed on occasion. It is then necessary to compare the propensity of a sample to fail by brittle crack propagation versus its tendency to fail (in service) by excessive creep. The use of linear elastic fracture mechanics addresses the first failure mode and not the second. If the brittle-ductile transition is kinetic in origin then at some stress a time always exists at which large strains will develop, provided that brittle failure does not intervene. 

The mechanical behavior of polymers is well recognized to be rate dependent. Transitions from ductile to brittle mode can be induced by increasing the test speed. The isotactic PP homopolymer with high molecular weight is ductile at low speed tensile tests. It is brittle at tension under high test speeds at room temperature. Grein et al. (62) determined the variation of Kiq with test speed for the a-PP CT samples (Fig. 11.22). The force-displacement (F-J) curves and the schematic diagrams of the fracture surfaces of CT samples are presented in Fig. 11.23. At a very low test speed of 1 mm s , the F-d curve exhibits a typical ductile behavior as expected. At 10 mm s, the F-d curve stiU displays some nonlinearity before the load reaches its maximum value, but this is substantially suppressed as test speeds increase further. The samples fail in brittle mode at test speeds >500 mm s . From Fig. 11.22, the Kiq values maintain at 3.2 MPam at test velocities from 1 to... 

The mechanical behavior of these Be-rich phases and its variation with temperature has been studied by means of hardness tests, bending stress-rupture tests, tension tests and compression tests (Ryba, 1967 Marder and Stonehouse, 1988 Fleischer and Zabala, 1990 c Nieh and Wadsworth, 1990 Bruemmer etal., 1993). The observed brittle-to-ductile transition temperatures are of the order of 1000°C. The low-temperature fracture toughness has been found to be between 2 and 4 MN/m with practically no macroscopic ductility (Bruemmer et al., 1993), though there are indications of local plasticity at... 

Another valued result in determining performance is obtained by studying impact behavior as a function of temperature. Materials that behave in a ductile fashion at room temperature become brittle at a low temperature. This transition in mechanical behavior is known as the Brittle to Ductile Temperature. Figure 5 gives an example of the temperature dependence of the toughness of nylon 6 modified with core/shell particles. 

The mechanical behavior of polymers is quite different from metals and ceramics and depends greatly on their structure and operating temperature. Below their glass transition temperature, Tg (the temperature at which their covalent bonded chains can no longer move relative to one another), they are quite brittle and exhibit glass-like behavior. Above their Tg, they behave plastically. In this sense, they are similar to metals that exhibit ductile-to-brittle transitions, but for entirely different reasons. 

The main considerations of mechanical properties of metals and alloys at low temperatures taken into account for safety reasons are the transition from ductile-to-brittle behavior, certain unconventional modes of plastic deformation, and mechanical and elastic properties changes due to phase transformations in the crystalline structure. 

At room temperature, well below Tg, a brittle failure is generally observed. The ductile behavior appears when yielding becomes a competitive mechanism of deformation. At high speeds the brittle stress is not too much affected but ductile-brittle transition to higher temperatures. 

The effects of morphology (i.e., crystallization rate) (6,7, 8) on the mechanical properties of semicrystalline polymers has been studied without observation of a transition from ductile to brittle failure behavior in unoriented samples of similar crystallinity. Often variations in ductlity are observed as spherulite size is varied, but this is normally confounded with sizable changes in percent crystallinity. This report demonstrates that a semicrystalline polymer, poly(hexamethylene sebacate) (HMS) may exhibit either ductile or brittle behavior dependent upon thermal history in a manner not directly related to volume relaxation or percent crystallinity. 

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