Appraisal of two methods for determining the toughness of different polymers

Abstract

The use of polymers for engineering products has dramatically increased in recent decades. For some applications, polymers have a significant advantage over metals. This is, for example, because of the corrosion problems of steels and other metals. When evaluating a material's suitability for a product, the resistances of the material to crack initiation and crack propagation are important. Particular care is needed when comparing the toughness of polymers with those of metals being considered for the same product. A problem is that many evaluation methods originally devised for metals are less suitable for evaluating polymers. In this study, both impact and steady state fracture evaluation methods for polymers are researched.