Measurement of the X-ray Elastic Constants of Amorphous Polycarbonate

Abstract

In polymer materials, residual stress introduced during injection molding affects yield reduction due to deformation during molding and delayed fracture during operation, so the establishment of nondestructive stress evaluation of polymer products is desirable. The X-ray elastic constants of polycarbonate were measured for the purpose of obtaining fundamental data for X-ray stress measurement of amorphous polymer materials. The structural function was obtained from the diffraction data, and the strain measured by X-ray was determined from the shift of the first peak by the Q-space method. The peak position was determined using the pseudo-Voigt function approximation method and the diffraction line width method. The Young’s modulus measured by X-ray obtained by the diffraction line width method was close to the mechanical value. Although these values varied widely, they changed depending on the peak ratio. A simple and practical measurement method directly using the raw profile data was also discussed. The Young’s modulus determined by the diffraction line width method decreased with increasing peak ratio. On the other hand, the values determined by the pseudo-Voigt method were almost constant, irrespective of the peak ratio. The strain calculated by the line width method was determined more accurately than that by the pseudo-Voigt method.