Shear yielding and crazing in dry and wet amorphous PLA at body temperature

Abstract

Understanding the inelastic, rate-dependent mechanical response of biodegradable polymers is important for the design of load-bearing biodegradable structures with controlled deformation and failure response. In this study, we investigate the mechanical response of amorphous polylactic acid (PLA) in dry and wet conditions prior to the onset of degradation at body temperature. The presence of water decreases the glass transition temperature by 4.5 °C, the storage modulus by 21%, and the compressive and tensile yield strengths by about 10%, despite a small water uptake of 0.93 wt%. The tensile response of PLA is dominated by craze yielding, rather than shear plasticity, and is stable against necking despite pronounced strain softening and local strain heterogeneities measured by Digital Image Correlation (DIC). Further analysis of the DIC strain fields in dry and wet samples suggests a transition from pure craze yielding in dry samples to a coexistence of craze yielding and shear plasticity in wet samples. The mechanism shift between tension and compression behaviour of dry and wet PLA has implications for the design of load-bearing structures and for constitutive modelling.