The tensile behavior of polycarbonate and polycarbonate–glass bead composites

Abstract

AbstractThe tensile behavior at 20°C of unfilled polycarbonate and polycarbonate–glass bead composites (90/10 vol %) has been investigated by tensile testing with simultaneous volume change measurements. Both the effect of the bead size and the degree of interfacial adhesion on the tensile behavior of the composites has been studied. A simple model has been applied to obtain quantitative information on the separate contributions of several possible deformation mechanisms to the total deformation. For unfilled polycarbonate and the polycarbonate–glass bead composites with excellent interfacial adhesion, shear deformation is found to be the only significant non‐Hookean deformation mechanism. By means of strain recovery experiments it is shown that the shear deformation is highly elastic in character. For the composites with poor interfacial adhesion, besides shear deformation also dewetting cavitation contributes to the non‐Hookean deformation. The differences in tensile behavior between the composites with excellent and poor interfacial adhesion are explained by the different mechanisms for shear band formation at excellently and poorly adhering glass beads.