Toughness improvement of polyamide 11 assessed via quasistatic tensile tests on notched round bars

Lucien Laiarinandrasana (1) , Guillaume Boisot (1, 2) , C. Fond (2, 3) , Gilles Hochstetter (4)

1 MAT - Centre des Matériaux
2 ICS - Institut Charles Sadron
3 IMFS - Institut de Mécanique des Fluides et des Solides
4 CERDATO - Centre de recherche, développement, applications et technique de l'ouest

Toughening a polymeric material by adding rubber particles is a common technique used forglassy polymers and measured by means of Charpy or Izod impact tests. These latter aredetermined under dynamic conditions, thus at high strain rate or equivalently at very lowtemperature for polymeric materials.This work is devoted to three grades of semi-crystalline PolyAmide 11 (PA11), used in alarge number of engineering components. Service conditions are close to the glass transitiontemperature. Therefore, tests with quasi-static loading are expected to be more appropriate.The aim of the study is to find a methodology allowing the quantification of toughnessimprovement. To this end, an experimental database was constituted. Three grades of PA11were involved, that enable to analyze effects of: i) aging, ii) addition of a plasticizer iii)addition of rubber particles. Tensile tests were then carried out on notched round bars.Trends of load versus notch opening displacement curves are investigated. Longitudinalcross-sections on specimens issued from interrupted tests and fracture surfaces wereexamined in order to study deformation and damage mechanisms. An attempt is made to linktoughness improvement to the increase in global fracture energy.

Mots clés: Rubber toughened polymers; damage mechanics; fracture mechanics; finite element; void growth; cavitation; polymer mechanics

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]; Matériaux

Lucien Laiarinandrasana, Guillaume Boisot, C. Fond, Gilles Hochstetter. Toughness improvement of polyamide 11 assessed via quasistatic tensile tests on notched round bars. Fracture of materials and structures from micro to macro scale - ECF 18, Aug 2010, Dresden, Germany. 8 p. ⟨hal-00541094⟩