Abstract
In the case of very thin materials such as blown films, the applied stress state in front of the crack tip is normally a plane stress condition, and the deformation around the crack tip due to the remote stress is very large. However, current standard test methods for quantifying the fracture toughness of thin films, such as the Elmendorf tear test, cannot explain or represent the tear characteristics accurately. The common way of interpreting the test results from the Elmendorf tear test is to develop an empirical correlation and then compare the average values. In this paper, essential work of fracture (EWF) tests for five commercial polyethylene (PE) blown films have been conducted, and the fundamentals of their tear properties based on fracture mechanics have been studied. The results from the EWF test are interpreted based on two important parameters, i.e., the essential work of fracture (We) and the non-essential work of fracture (Wp). Further, the relationship between these parameters and the current standard Elmendorf tear test is shown.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2732-2739 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Polymer |
Volume | 51 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2010 May |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors wish to thank William Michie, Shaofu Wu, and Theresa Hermel-Davidock of the Dow Chemical Company and Professor Alexander Chudnovsky of the University of Illinois at Chicago for valuable advice and extensive discussions on this work. This work was also supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant ( No. 2009-0076661 ) that was funded by the Korea government (MEST) .
Keywords
- Essential work of fracture
- Polyethylene blown films
- Tear
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Organic Chemistry
- Polymers and Plastics
- Materials Chemistry