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Fracture Energy and Critical Strength of High Molecular Weight Glassy Polymers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2011

Antonios G. Mikos
Affiliation:
Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
Nikolaos A. Peppas
Affiliation:
School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-1283
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Abstract

The fracture energy and the critical strength of glassy polymers with molecular weight larger than the critical value for the onset of chain entanglements are proportional to the number of chain segments entangled about a unit plane. A new molecular model is presented to calculate the crossing density of these chain segments when the segment length is a stochastic variable. The crossing density depends on the mesh size of the entanglement network and the number of entanglement network strands per unit volume. Theoretical predictions of the variation of the fracture energy and strength with the molecular weight are compared with experimental results for various glassy polymers.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1991

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References

REFERENCES

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