Polymer
Polymer
5 years ago

Stress-strain measurement of ultra-thin polystyrene films: Film thickness and molecular weight dependence of crazing stress

Stress-strain measurement of ultra-thin polystyrene films: Film thickness and molecular weight dependence of crazing stress
In general, self-standing polymer ultra-thin films are difficult to be handled, and therefore their mechanical properties have been poorly understood. We carried out the uniaxial tensile test of ultra-thin films floating on the surface of water and measured the stress-strain curves of polystyrene (PS) ultra-thin films with thickness of around 100 nm. We found that in the stress-strain curves of PS ultra-thin films, yielding points similar to ductile materials appear. We also employed Brewster's angle reflection imaging to follow the visual appearance of ultra-thin films during tensile tests. We found that the narrow shear deformation zones (SDZs), which are 2D analogue of crazes, appear at the yield point, and both the yield and equivalently crazing stresses decrease with decreasing the film thickness. Moreover, the reduction of crazing stress is more significant for the higher molecular weight polystyrene.

Publisher URL: www.sciencedirect.com/science

DOI: S0032386117306778

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.