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Viscoplastic tearing of polyethylene thin film

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Abstract

Recent advances in noncontact strain measurement techniques and large-strain constitutive modeling of the linear low-density polyethylene film used in NASA superpressure balloons StratoFilm 420 are combined to provide a novel measurement technique for the tear propagation critical value of the J-integral. Previously these measurements required complex test configurations and procedures. It is found that the critical value of the J-integral increases by approximately 50 % when the strain rate is decreased from 1.33×10−4 s−1 to 1.33×10−5 s−1. It is shown that there is good correlation between measurements made on uniaxially loaded dogbone samples and circular diaphragms loaded by pressure, both with a 2-mm-wide slit in the middle. This result indicates that more extensive studies of strain-rate dependence may be made with the simpler, uniaxial test configuration.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. Wolfgang Knauss, Dr. Kawai Kwok, and Dr. Jun Li for helpful comments and advice. DH research at the California Institute of Technology was supported by an Imre Koranyi Civil Engineering Fellowship from the Thomas Cholnoky Foundation. Financial support from the NASA Balloon Research Program is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanics, Materials and Structures, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Müegyetem rkp. 3, 1111, Budapest, Hungary

    Dezso Hegyi

  2. Graduate Aerospace Laboratories, California Institute of Technology, 1200 E. California Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA

    Sergio Pellegrino

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  1. Dezso Hegyi
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  2. Sergio Pellegrino
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Correspondence to Sergio Pellegrino.

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Hegyi, D., Pellegrino, S. Viscoplastic tearing of polyethylene thin film. Mech Time-Depend Mater 19, 187–208 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11043-015-9259-7

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