Crazing Characteristics of Polymers: The Use of the Slope-Discontinuity Method for Glassy Polymers Containing Rigid Spherical Inclusions

Abstract Stress-strain curves of glass bead filled glassy polymers show a slope-discontinuity related to crazing in the matrix. The slope-discontinuity method is verified in this paper regarding its reliability for the prediction of crazing characteristics provided that orientation-free samples filled with the proper size and concentration of untreated glass beads are used. The effects of orientation, temperature and thickness of the tensile specimens on the discontinuity characteristics are also studied. A stress concentration factor K is found to be independent of bead volume fraction and size, temperature and orientation. A good agreement is usually found between calculated crazing values by the slope-discontinuity method and directly measured values carried out in the present work or reported in the literature.