Coupling of Nanocavitation With Cyclic Deformation Behavior of High-Density Polyethylene Below the Yield Point

Abstract

The peculiarities of viscoelastic behavior of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) subjected to the uniaxial cyclic tensions and retractions below the yield point are studied. This required using three different deformation programs including (i) the successive increase in strain maximum of each cycle, (ii) the controlled upper and lower stress boundaries, and (iii) the fixed strain at the backtracking points. The experimental data are analyzed in a framework of the modified structure-sensitive model (Oshmyan et al. , 2006, “Principles of Structural–Mechanical Modeling of Polymers and Composites,” Polym. Sci. Ser. A, 48, pp. 1004–1013) of semicrystalline polymers. It is supposed that increase in the interlamellar nanovoid volume fraction results in speeding-up the plastic flow rate while decreasing cavitation rate. Consequently, a proper fitting of the stress–strain cyclic diagrams is obtained for the applied deformation programs within the common set of model parameters. This makes it possible to reveal evolution of nanovoid volume fraction in HDPE during cyclic deformations.