Yielding of commercial poly(vinyl chloride) pipe material

Abstract

AbstractTubular test specimens of commercial poly(vinyl chloride) pipe material were tested in biaxial stress systems covering the four quadrants of the plane–stress space. The test rig provided yield stresses at a constant temperature and controlled strain rate tension, compression, internal pressure, external pressure, and torsion combined loading. The experimental yield points fit the von Mises yield criterion. This result was confirmed by the ratio of compressive to tensile yield stresses; being unity, the density remaining constant with the applied hydrostatic stress, and, finally, the normality of the strain vector to the yield locus at the corresponding stressing point. Subsequent yielding loci of previously deformed specimens deviated largely from the von Mises locus. This deviation may have been caused by craze–void interaction. Finally, the viscous behavior, the dependence of yield stresses on the strain rate and temperature, is represented with a generalized phenomenological model based on an Eyring–Ward‐type expression. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 81: 991–999, 2001