Kinematographic Study of Tensile Fracture in Polymers

Abstract

High speed motion pictures were taken of silicone rubber, irradiated polyethylene, Plexiglas II, and aluminum foil while they were being broken. Fractures started internally in some of the silicone samples but at the edges of all of the others. The rates of crack growth and the rates of retraction of the ends of the rubber samples were measured. The velocities with which the cracks grew were compared with the results of the theories of Poncelet, Yoffe, Mott, and Roberts and Wells. Their prediction, that the velocities should be about one half those of transverse waves in the media, was found to represent the data for materials with moduli differing by five decades. After fracture, the ends of the rubber samples contracted with velocities approximately equal to the velocities of longitudinal waves in these samples.