Rubber-toughening of plastics

The effects of stress-and strain-history upon the mechanical properties of HIPS (highimpact polystyrene) and of blends containing HIPS and PPO^R resin have been studied in a number of different tests, including repeated creep testing of individual specimens and repeated tensile tests at constant strain-rate upon individual specimens. The results show that craze formation increases volume and lowers Young's modulus in specimens subjected to tensile strain, and that strained specimens recover only slowly towards the properties of the unstrained material. Recovery is accelerated by heating, or by immersion in alcohols. A given initial strain produces a greater reduction in modulus in HIPS, which deforms almost entirely by crazing, than in HIPS/PPO blends, which deform by a combination of crazing and shear band formation. The properties of strained specimens are dominated by the distinctive non-linear mechanical behaviour of crazes, and the problems of constructing models to represent this behaviour are discussed.