Plane-stress essential work of ductile fracture for polycarbonate

The effect of specimen geometry, specimen size and the specimen orientation on the essential work of fracture for polycarbonate is investigated. Two different test geometries, namely the single-edge notched tension and double-edge notched tension specimens, are used to evaluate the essential work of fracture for crack propagation. It is shown that the specific essential work of fracture for crack propagation,we′ is independent of the test piece geometries and the size of the test piece. It seems that for a given sheet thickness,we is a fundamental material property being independent of the specimen geometry and size. The value ofwe does change with the orientation of the initial notch with respect to the melt flow direction. The straight-line relationships between the total specific work of fracture,wf, and ligament length,L, breaks down when the ligament length to specimen thickness ratio is less than about three, because the fracture data fall in the plane stress-plane strain transition region. A plane strain specific essential work of fracture,wle|′, was obtained by extrapolating the best regression line of the data to a zero ligament. For the initial notch in the melt flow direction, values forwe andwle′, were approximately 28 and 3 kJ m−2, respectively. The specific essential work of initiation,wle′ was about 4.3 kJ m−2 ·JR curves (J-Δa curves) were also obtained and it is shown that the intercept and the slope of theJr curve, i.e.JC and dJ/da, are related towe and the slope of thewf versus ligament plot.