1 s2.0 S0749641913001150 Main

Experiments and modeling of high-crystalline polyethylene
yielding under different stress states

K. Hachour
a,b,c
, F. Zari
a,b,
, M. Nat-Abdelaziz
a,b
, J.M. Gloaguen
a,d
, M. Aberkane
c
,
J.M. Lefebvre
a,d
a
Universit Lille Nord de France, F-59000 Lille, France
b
Universit Lille 1 Sciences et Technologies, Laboratoire de Mcanique de Lille (LML), UMR CNRS 8107, F-59650 Villeneuve dAscq, France
c
Universit Mouloud Mammeri, Tizi-Ouzou 15000, Algeria
d
Universit Lille 1 Sciences et Technologies, Unit Matriaux Et Transformations (UMET), UMR CNRS 8207, F-59650 Villeneuve dAscq, France
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 11 May 2011
Received in nal revised form 16 April 2013
Available online xxxx
Keywords:
Polymers
Multiaxial loading
Yield criterion
Micromechanical modeling
a b s t r a c t
The mechanical response of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) was examined under differ-
ent stress states. The biaxial yielding of HDPE material was investigated from a series of
biaxial shear/tension and shear/compression tests using buttery-shaped specimens
deformed with an Arcan apparatus equipped with a digital image correlation (DIC) system
for local strain measurements. In order to investigate a wider range of stress states,
notched round bar specimens with different curvature radii were also tested using a
video-controlled tensile testing apparatus. More conventional mechanical loading paths
(uniaxial tension/compression and simple shear tests) were also examined to provide bet-
ter insights on the stress state effects. The present investigation is more particularly
focused on the yield envelope determination of HDPE material. A combined DIC and ana-
lytical approach was proposed to measure the yield strengths of buttery-shaped speci-
mens in the region where the yielding occurs. The relevance of classical yield criteria,
exhibiting dependence on both the deviatoric and hydrostatic stresses, is veried. Consid-
ering HDPE as a heterogeneous medium consisting of a percolated crystalline matrix and a
discrete amorphous phase, a micromechanics-based yield locus is tested. The experimental
biaxial yield data are found to support this theoretical yield criterion and thus the sug-
gested morphological representation for high-crystalline polymers.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
High-density polyethylene (HDPE) is increasingly being used in engineering applications such as pipes and pressure ves-
sels. In the scope of predicting the behavior during the in-service phase of these mechanical structures the development of
constitutive models is of prime interest. This necessitates getting relevant data and basic understanding of material mechan-
ical response under a variety of loading conditions. Over the years, a great number of studies dealt with the strain rate and
temperature effects on the yielding of thermoplastics (Eyring, 1936; Argon, 1973; Brooks et al., 1998; Richeton et al., 2006),
but focusing generally on a uniaxial state of stress. These previous studies led to the proposition of mathematical expressions
of the yield stress in relation with its physical origins in terms of mobility of the initial molecular architecture. During the
last 20 years, considerable efforts were provided to propose 3D constitutive models, dedicated to glassy or semi-crystalline
thermoplastics, able to predict their strain rate and temperature dependent mechanical behavior (Boyce et al., 1988, 2000;
0749-6419/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijplas.2013.06.004
Corresponding author at: Universit Lille 1 Sciences et Technologies, Laboratoire de Mcanique de Lille (LML), UMR CNRS 8107, F-59650 Villeneuve
dAscq, France. Tel.: +33 328767460; fax: +33 328767301.
E-mail address: fahmi.zairi@polytech-lille.fr (F. Zari).
International Journal of Plasticity xxx (2013) xxxxxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
International Journal of Plasticity
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ i j pl as
Please cite this article in press as: Hachour, K., et al. Experiments and modeling of high-crystalline polyethylene yielding under different
stress states. Int. J. Plasticity (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijplas.2013.06.004
Buckley and Jones, 1995; Bardenhagen et al., 1997; Chaboche, 1997; Tervoort et al., 1997; Frank and Brockman, 2001; Khan
and Zhang, 2001; Drozdov and Christiansen, 2003; Colak, 2005; Zari et al., 2005, 2007, 2010; Pyrz and Zari, 2007; Richeton
et al., 2007; Dusunceli and Colak, 2008; Ames et al., 2009; Anand et al., 2009; Drozdov, 2009; Regrain et al., 2009; Belbachir
et al., 2010; Ayoub et al., 2010, 2011; Srivastava et al., 2010). Although able to give an acceptable representation of the
mechanical response, most of 3D constitutive models do not take into account the effect of the hydrostatic stress on the yield
surface, depending only on the second invariant of the deviatoric stress tensor.
1
Some studies however showed that the
mechanical response of polymers is sensitive to both the deviatoric and hydrostatic stresses (Mears et al., 1969; Ward,
1971). Therefore, to fully account for its effect on the multiaxial response of thermoplastics, the hydrostatic stress must be in-
cluded in any yield criterion then used to construct a 3D plastic ow model. Over the years, several criteria based on the clas-
sical plasticity theory involving the hydrostatic component of the stress tensor have been proposed to describe the yielding of
various thermoplastic or thermosetting polymers; some authors used modied forms of Tresca and von Mises criteria (Bowden
and Jukes, 1972; Raghava et al., 1973; Escaig, 1997; Lesser and Kody, 1997; Quinson et al., 1997; Fasce et al., 2008; Farrokh and
Khan, 2010) while others used yield functions based on the DruckerPrager criterion (Ghorbel, 2008; Epee et al., 2011). The
mentioned authors used various types of experimental devices, including thin-walled tube tests for shear, compression and ten-
sion loading superimposed to hydrostatic pressure. In spite of the important number of studies dealing with the yielding of
polymers, no consensus exists concerning the most appropriate way to investigate the stress state effects.
The purpose of the present work is to investigate the stress state effects on the yield response of HDPE material using
complementary experimental approaches: one combining tension or compression to shear in a plane stress state and the
other imposing a triaxial stress state. The biaxial yield response was measured from a series of biaxial shear/tension and
shear/compression tests using buttery-shaped specimens. The triaxial stress state effects were examined by means of tests
using notched round bar specimens with different curvature radii in order to set different triaxial stress states in the median
cross-section. More conventional tests using different geometries and loadings, namely uniaxial tension/compression and
simple shear, were also made. The present investigation is more particularly focused on the yield envelope determination
in the specimen zone where the yielding occurs. Because the average stresses and strains are different from the actual stres-
ses and strains directly involved in the yielding zone, local measurements, using digital image correlation (DIC) for buttery-
shaped specimens and minimum diameter monitoring for notched round bar specimens, were performed. For an accurate
biaxial yield envelope construction a combined DIC and analytical approach is proposed. The validity of classical yield cri-
teria of the literature is checked by comparison with our experimental results. Considering HDPE as a heterogeneous mate-
rial containing two distinguishing phases (a discrete amorphous phase embedded in a percolated crystalline matrix), the
validity of a yield criterion based on the micromechanics framework is also examined.
The present paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we present the investigated material, the different specimen
geometries, the mechanical testing protocols and the experimental results. Further, various theoretical yield criteria are as-
sessed in Section 3. Some concluding remarks are nally given in Section 4.
2. Experiments
All HDPE specimens used in this study were machined from the same pipe. Because of plastic instabilities involved in
HDPE, a non-uniform state of stress and strain occurs, thus the deformation must be localized in a well-dened region of
the specimen to succeed local measurements. The mechanical tests were carried out on an electromechanical Instron-
5800 universal testing machine equipped with suitable testing rigs. The Instron testing machine has a capacity of 30 kN
and an appropriate load-cell. In order to compare the yield response obtained from the different specimens, and thus deduce
the effects of multiaxial loading, the strain rate and the temperature were xed. The mechanical tests were achieved under
an equivalent strain rate of 10
3
s
1
(unless explicitly otherwise specied) and at room temperature (RT).
2.1. Material
The HDPE material retained for the present investigation was provided by the STPM CHIALI Company: density q 0.96 g/
cm
3
, weight-average molar weight M
w
310,000 g/mol and carbon black 2.5%. Pipes of this material with outer and inner
diameters of 250 and 232 mm, respectively, were received from the manufacturer. The crystallinity ratio was determined by
differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements achieved at a heating rate of 10 C/min using a Perkin-Elmer Diamond
DSC. The tests were performed on specimens of 10 mg collected at three locations along the pipe thickness. The reproduc-
ibility of the measurements was veried by achieving a second run. The crystal weight fraction /
cw
was calculated as the
ratio of the measured melting enthalpy DH
f
and the theoretical melting enthalpy of a perfect polymer crystal DH
0
f
taken
equal to 289 J/g (Wunderlich, 1980):
/
cw

DH
f
DH
0
f
1
1
To account for hydrostatic stress effects, heuristic modications are sometimes brought in the 3D constitutive models by the introduction of a parameter
representing the ratio of yield strengths in uniaxial compression and tension.
2 K. Hachour et al. / International Journal of Plasticity xxx (2013) xxxxxx
A crystal weight fraction of approximately 74% was found for each examined location, conrming that this parameter is not
sensitive to the process. Note that uniaxial tensile tests performed on plate specimens cut at the same locations along the
pipe thickness did not show any appreciable difference on the mechanical response at RT. The crystal volume fraction /
c
,
requested in the last part of the present work, is computed using the following relation:
/
c

q
q
c
/
cw
2
where q is the density of the whole material and q
c
= 1 g/cm
3
the density of the crystalline phase.
2.2. Conventional experiments
Conventional mechanical methods, including uniaxial tension, uniaxial compression and simple shear, were used. To
examine the yield behavior of HDPE under uniaxial tension conditions a notched round bar specimen, with a large curvature
radius of 80 mm, was used; the specimen is that referred to as R80 in Fig. 1. In uniaxial compression, the specimen shape is a
cylinder of 10 mm height and 10 mm diameter and in simple shear a parallelepiped of 20 5 5 mm
3
. The assigned value of
1 for heightdiameter ratio of compression specimens allows preventing buckling. Friction between platens of the testing
machine and specimens was reduced to a negligible level by applying a lubricant. To minimize the incidence of specimen
shearing during the uniaxial compression, care was taken to ensure the cylinder ends were smooth and parallel. The
cross-sectional area value of shear specimens was chosen to prevent exure effects.
To measure the actual yield event during the uniaxial loading paths, the mechanical tests were performed with the help of
a non-contact optical extensometer able to maintain constant local true diametral strain rate by regulating the cross-head
speed of the testing machine, even after plastic instabilities (i.e. necking or specimen barreling). Details on the experimental
procedure are given elsewhere (Gsell et al., 1992, 2002). For both uniaxial tension and compression tests, the true axial
stress was obtained from the measured force values and the current diameter of the specimen monitored optically in its
mid-plane. The true axial strain was determined assuming incompressibility. The experimental set-up used for the simple
shear tests consists of a U-bolt and a hook which symmetrically shear two sections of the specimen. This set-up was de-
scribed and used previously by other authors (Sternstein et al., 1968; Quinson et al., 1997). The shear stress was simply ob-
tained from the measured force values and the area of two sheared sections and the shear strain was directly correlated to
the shear angle.
The HDPE stressstrain response
2
during uniaxial compression and simple shear loading paths is given in Fig. 2. The HDPE
material exhibits a mechanical response characteristic of semi-crystalline polymers during such loading paths. For both loading
paths, the initial linear elastic behavior is followed by a rollover to yield. It can be however observed that these two loading
paths induce different plastic strain hardening tendencies. In simple shear, the plastic behavior exhibits a nearly zero strain
R80 R10 R4 R2
Fig. 1. Shape and dimensions of the notched round bar specimens (All dimensions are in mm).
2
Note that stress and strain were transformed into equivalent stress and strain by using the conventional von Mises relations.
K. Hachour et al. / International Journal of Plasticity xxx (2013) xxxxxx 3
hardening. By contrast, a progressive plastic strain hardening is observed in uniaxial compression. This can be related to the
modication of microstructure with deformation which is different in both loading paths. The observed macroscopic strain
hardening in compression is associated to a planar molecular orientation process which differs to that induced in simple shear
(e.g. Bartczak et al., 1994; Boulahia et al., 2009). Focusing in Fig. 3 on the R80 specimen, providing an initial stress triaxiality of
0.33, the HDPE stressstrain response during uniaxial tension can be examined. The highly nonlinear response of HDPE is clearly
illustrated. After the initial elastic response and the rollover to yield, a progressive plastic strain hardening followed by a sig-
nicant plastic strain hardening at very large strains can be observed. The macroscopic strain hardening is related to the stretch-
ing of chains in the amorphous phase and to the fragmentation of crystallites leading to the formation of a brillar
microstructure (Schultz, 1984). The results presented in Figs. 2 and 3 show that the equivalent yield strength is lower in simple
shear than in uniaxial tension and compression. That demonstrates that a yield criterion based upon the second invariant of the
deviatoric stress tensor such as the von Mises one is no longer valid to describe the plastic ow of this material. These features
were already reported by several authors (see the references cited in the introduction) and should be also found in HDPE biaxial
responses combining shear/tension or shear/compression.
0
10
20
30
40
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
equivalent strain
e
q
u
i
v
a
l
e
n
t

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
UC
SS
Fig. 2. Equivalent stressstrain responses during uniaxial compression (UC) and simple shear (SS) loading paths.
0
20
40
60
80
0 0.3 0.6 0.9 1.2 1.5
true strain
t
r
u
e

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
R2
R4
R10
R80
Fig. 3. True stressstrain responses of the notched round bar specimens.
2.3. Tension of notched round bars
For the triaxial experiments, notched round bar specimens with different curvature radii were prepared (Fig. 1). The spec-
imens are referred to as Rx where x is the value of curvature radius. The geometric parameters were chosen in order to set
different stress states in the median cross-section. The multiaxial stress state was quantied using the stress triaxiality ratio
T dened as the ratio of the hydrostatic stress r
h
and the von Mises equivalent stress r
eq
:
T
r
h
r
eq
3
in which r
h
and r
eq
are expressed in the principal directions as:
r
h

1
3
r
1
r
2
r
3
r
eq

1
2
p
r
1
r
2
2
r
1
r
3
2
r
3
r
2
2
_ _
1=2 4
r
i
(i = 13) being the principal stresses.
At the center of the median cross-section the stress triaxiality ratio T was determined using the Bridgman formula (Bridg-
man, 1944):
T
1
3
ln 1
D
4R
c
_ _
5
where R
c
is the curvature radius. An initial minimum diameter D of 5 mm was chosen for the four geometries. The initial
stress triaxiality ratio is equal to 0.33, 0.44, 0.6 and 0.8 for R80, R10, R4 and R2 specimens, respectively.
The above mentioned video-controlled technique was used to control and measure the diameter reduction. The median
cross-section of specimens presents a triaxial stress state that can be analyzed using the equivalent strain and stress dened
by the following expressions (Bridgman, 1944):
e
eq
2ln
D
0
D
r
eq

r
1
4Rc
D
ln 1
D
4Rc

6
where D
0
and D are the initial and actual minimum diameter of the specimen, respectively, R
c
is the actual curvature radius
and r is the true axial stress. Boisot et al. (2011) found that the Bridgman correction overestimates the stress in the plastic
regime. They also highlighted that, in rst approximation, the Bridgman formula can be used up to the peak stress. We have
also achieved nite element (FE) simulations which show that the deviation with the formula is acceptable.
The results of triaxial loading tests in terms of true stressstrain curves are given in Fig. 3. The inuence of the stress tri-
axiality (controlled by the curvature radius of the specimen) on the overall behavior can be clearly observed. The initial elas-
tic stiffness is observed to exhibit a negligible dependence on stress triaxiality. However, the stress triaxiality affects both the
initial ow stress and the strain hardening response, increasing with an increase in stress triaxiality. A slight softening is
observed just after yielding for the highest triaxiality. The triaxiality dependence of the yield response is due to the inuence
of hydrostatic stress on molecular motions leading to yielding. High positive hydrostatic stress favors also the damage mech-
anisms development, especially, micro-voids nucleated within the amorphous phase (Castagnet and Deburck, 2007). Note
that a signicant plastic volumetric strain, determined in the specimen gauge zone, was obtained for the two highest stress
triaxialities. In such case, the use of the Bridgman (1944) formula to describe the plastic response is somewhat questionable
(Boisot et al., 2011). Recently, Zari et al. (2008, 2011a) proposed 3D constitutive equations including hydrostatic and void
evolution terms to capture the macroscopic response of a polymer blend under nite strains. The validity of the proposed
theory will be checked in future investigations over the hydrostatic pressure range investigated in the present work.
2.4. Biaxial experiments
For the biaxial testing of HDPE, buttery-shaped specimens were prepared. The specimen shape and dimensions are given
in Fig. 4. Note that a similar specimen shape was designed by Mohr and Henn (2007) and by Mae (2009). These specimens
have been selected since the initial plan was to study the fracture behavior of HDPE. The biaxial testing allows exploring ini-
tial stress triaxialities ranged from 0 to 0.55. The geometric parameters were chosen in order to guarantee prior to plastic
instabilities a uniform state of stresses and strains within the central section. Especially, in the central section features a
small at area. To ensure a state of plane stress, the thickness of the central section was set to 1 mm. Because the video-con-
trolled technique could not be adapted in this case, a constant cross-head speed of 0.5 mm/min was used.
The relevance of this specic geometry was veried by 3D FE calculations performed using MSC.Marc software. The 3D FE
mesh of the buttery-shaped specimen, using four-node tetrahedral solid elements, is shown in Fig. 5. Note that the mesh is
sufciently rened in the zone of interest. The FE calculations conrmed that the central section of the buttery-shaped
specimen is well subjected to a uniform state of plane stress, the stress triaxiality being also uniform within the central sec-
tion. Fig. 6 presents elastic FE results in terms of strain distribution in the buttery-shaped specimen for three loading angle
values, a = 90, a = 45 and a = 0. The FE results conrm that the strain distribution strongly depends on the loading angle.
Although the strain distribution is not uniform along the y-axis (see Fig. 7), it may be considered as constant in the central
section of the specimen. Mohr and Doyoyo (2002) proposed an analytical formula to evaluate the elastic biaxial stress state:
r
xx

F
S
b sina
1b cos
2
ab
_ _
r
yy
mr
xx
r
xy

F
S
cos a
11b sin
2
a
_ _
7
where r
xx
and r
yy
are the normal stresses, r
xy
is the shear stress, x and y being the coordinates perpendicular and parallel to
the central section, respectively. The limiting case of a = 0 corresponds to a simple shear loading (i.e. the stress triaxiality is
zero) while a = 90 to a stress triaxiality reaching its maximumof 0.55. The constant b is dened by the formula b 2=1 m
in which m is the elastic Poissons ratio. The term F designates the applied vertical load and S the cross-section of the central
part.
A specic Arcan apparatus was designed and manufactured for the present study to investigate the biaxial behavior of
HDPE. The method was initially proposed by Arcan et al. (1978) to study the biaxial failure of unidirectional ber-reinforced
composites. It was recently used to investigate the yield and/or fracture behavior of metallic materials (e.g. Doyoyo and
Wierzbicki, 2003; Mohr and Henn, 2007; Mohr and Ebnoether, 2009) or polymers (Mae, 2009). The designed experimental
set-up is presented in Fig. 7. The method consists to subject the buttery-shaped HDPE specimens to combinations of shear
and tension/compression loads. The inclination of the central section of specimens with the loading axis, simply dened by
the so-called biaxial loading angle a, 0 6 a 6 90, allows to control this combination. The Arcan apparatus is composed of
two semi-circular steel plates, with antisymmetric notches oriented at 45, connected to the Instron testing machine by
intermediate grips. The buttery-shaped HDPE specimen is xed to two semi-circular plates; any rotations or misalignments
during biaxial loading are prohibited thanks to three loading pins and four guide rods. As suggested rstly by Doyoyo and
Wierzbicki (2003), the absence of rotations using the clamped conguration of the Arcan apparatus is indispensable for
the biaxial testing of soft materials in order to prevent the out-of-plane displacements. The displacement elds were directly
measured in the central section of buttery-shaped specimens using a DIC system developed by LaVision equipped with a
50 mm Pentax lens. These optical measurements require an articial random speckle pattern generated by (very thin) dots
Fig. 4. Shape and dimensions of the buttery-shaped specimen (All dimensions are in mm).
Fig. 5. FE mesh of the buttery-shaped specimen.
sprayed on the small at area of the central section and illuminated by a strong white light beam. The pattern density was
maximized while avoiding the overlapping of speckles. The illuminated random speckle pattern was captured at a frequency
of 1 Hz during the deformation by a digital CCD camera placed in front of the buttery-shaped specimen and at a distance of
0.5 m. The area of interest was divided into small square sub-images of 32 pixels 32 pixels (with a resolution of 110 pixels/
mm) and the displacement vector was calculated using the corresponding sub-image pairs extracted from the reference
and deformed states. By achieving the analysis on numerous square sub-images, the full-eld contours of displacement were
obtained. The normal and shear engineering strains were calculated from the obtained displacement elds.
Positive and negative vertical displacements were applied on the buttery-shaped specimens at ve different loading an-
gles. By varying the biaxial loading angle, the HDPE material is subjected to different stress triaxialities. The specimens were
tested at the loading angles a = 0, 10, 30, 50 and 90 for the positive vertical displacements (combined shear/tension), and
a = 0, 10, 30, 50 and 70 for the negative vertical displacements (combined shear/compression). The loaddisplacement
curves during biaxial loading are presented in Fig. 8. Fig. 8a shows the results when a positive vertical displacement is
(a)
(b)
(c)
EYY
EYY
EXX EXY
EXX
EXY
EYY
EXX
EXY
Fig. 6. FE results in terms of strain distribution in the buttery-shaped specimen: (a) a = 90, (b) a = 45, (c) a = 0.
applied. It can be observed that the loaddisplacement curves do not intersect each other; lower is the loading angle, lower is
the load required to deform the specimens. The general shape of all curves, except that for a = 90, seems to be homothetic.
The initial linear elastic response is followed by a nonlinear evolution, this nonlinearity increasing with applied displacement
x
y
Fig. 7. Arcan apparatus with a buttery-shaped HDPE specimen.
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
displacement (mm)
l
o
a
d

(
N
)
= 90
= 50
= 30
= 10
= 0
(a)
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
displacement (mm)
l
o
a
d

(
N
)
= 70
= 50
= 30
= 10
= 0
(b)
Fig. 8. Loaddisplacement responses of the buttery-shaped specimen for different loading angles: (a) positive vertical displacement (combined shear/
tension), (b) negative vertical displacement (combined shear/compression).
up to reach almost an asymptotic value. The only divergence from this trend is seen for the loading angle of 90 exhibiting a
signicant load softening after the rollover to yield prior to load stabilization. The peak load denotes the onset of necking at
the central section because a planar tension stress state is favored at this loading angle. For the other loading angles, com-
bining shear and tension, the mechanical response looks like to that obtained in simple shear (see Fig. 2). Regarding the re-
sults for combined shear and compression given in Fig. 8b (negative vertical loads and displacements were converted into
positive values) it can be observed that the slope of the curves increases with the loading angle. Moreover, the curves reach a
peak load, beyond which the load drops. The displacement corresponding to the load drop is highly dependent on the loading
angle; more important it is, earlier the peak load occurs. The peak load can be associated to the onset of buckling at the cen-
tral section. Thus, the post-peak load regime is not relevant since it cannot be seen as intrinsic.
Representative contour plots of the strain elds in the central section of buttery-shaped specimens obtained by means of
DIC measurements are presented in Fig. 9 for three loading angle values, a = 90, a = 45 and a = 0. All contours are shown at
the end of the linear elastic response. We recall that out-of-plane displacements are prohibited thanks to loading pins and
guide rods that control the planar loading process. The observations on the global response are conrmed by the DIC strain
results. Especially, the transition from a planar tension-dominated state for a = 90 to a shear-dominated state for a = 0 is
well transcribed by these local data.
3. Yield envelope
3.1. Yield envelope determination
Our aim is now to determine a yield envelope based on the experimental response measured under different stress states.
The yield stress of polymers can be identied fromseveral methods (see e.g. Ward and Sweeney, 2004) depending essentially
on the stressstrain curve shape. According to the ISO R257 standard, it can be dened as being equal to the nominal
Fig. 9. DIC results in terms of strain distribution (in percent) in the central section of buttery-shaped specimens: (a) a = 90, (b) a = 45, (c) a = 0.
maximum stress. However, the HDPE mechanical response does not systematically present an intrinsic yield drop for the
different loading conditions. In such a case, the stress at yield onset may be determined by the Considre construction, which
is, in essence, somewhat arbitrary. Inspired by the convention adopted for metallic materials some authors proposed another
graphical method to determine the yield stress by intersecting the stressstrain curve by a line with an offset strain from the
origin and parallel to the linear elastic domain of the stressstrain curve. The reasonable percent offset to apply is however
open to debate. Alternatively, the stress level at which yielding occurs can be determined from the deviation of the linear
elastic response. This last methodology was adopted for the yield stress determination whatever the examined loading
mode.
The stresses and strains being localized in the central section of the buttery-shaped specimen, the yielding occurs in this
zone. The knowledge of local stresses or strains would then allowextracting a yield envelope. It is worth mentioning that it is
impossible to predetermine the stress eld in the central section of the buttery-shaped specimen without already knowing
the constitutive law of HDPE. However, the local biaxial stresses in the elastic regime, or even at the yield point, can be cal-
culated using the Mohr and Doyoyo (2002) analytical expressions given by Eq. (7). This requires knowledge of the load cor-
responding to the yield point and the elastic Poissons ratio m. Based on the optical measurements of the transverse strain on
plate specimens, a value of m = 0.45 was obtained. This value appeared to be independent of the specimen location along the
pipe thickness. The measured biaxial yield stresses at the yield point are plotted in Fig. 10 as functions of the loading angle. A
shear yield strength (a = 0) of 3.58 MPa is obtained. This value slightly deviates from the shear strength value of 4.54 MPa
measured in simple shear. With the loading angle increase the magnitude of the normal stresses increases whereas that of
the shear stress decreases, the strengths in shear/compression being higher than those in shear/tension. This result was ex-
pected since the forces required to activate molecular mobility leading to yielding are more important in compression than
in tension. It is observed that the yield strengths obtained from the biaxial tests compared well with the yield strengths of
the notched round bar specimens. Especially, the stress state in the biaxial experiments at a = 30 are very close to that mea-
sured in uniaxial tension and compression for positive and negative vertical displacements, respectively. Note that the yield
stress values obtained using the analytical expressions given by Eq. (7) are lower than those obtained locally by FE calcula-
tions and the resulting yield envelope constitutes thus a lower bound. It is therefore conservative.
In what follows, various yield criteria are examined for their validity against the experimental data.
3.2. Yield equations
3.2.1. Verication of existing yield criteria for polymers
In this section, the biaxial yield strengths are analyzed in light of classical yield criteria modied to account for the effect
of hydrostatic stress (Bauwens, 1970; Bowden and Jukes, 1972; Raghava et al., 1973) and considering the material as isotro-
pic and homogeneous. The original von Mises yield criterion states that the yield surface only depends on the second invari-
ant of the deviatoric stress tensor. The most common modications to the von Mises yield criterion are those proposed by
Bauwens (1970) and Raghava et al. (1973) expressed, respectively, as follows:
2
p
r
yc
r
yt
r
yc
r
yt
r
1
r
2
r
3
r
1
r
2
2
r
1
r
3
2
r
3
r
2
2
_ _
1=2
2

2
p
r
yc
r
yt
r
yc
r
yt
8
-25
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
loading angle ()
s
t
r
e
s
s

c
o
m
p
o
n
e
n
t
s

a
t

y
i
e
l
d

(
M
P
a
)
xx
(+)
xy
(+)
yy
(+)
xx
(-)
xy
(-)
yy
(-)
Fig. 10. Variation of the measured biaxial stress components at yield with the loading angle; (+): positive vertical displacement, (): negative vertical
displacement.
2r
yc
r
yt
r
1
r
2
r
3
r
1
r
2
2
r
1
r
3
2
r
3
r
2
2
_ _
2r
yc
r
yt
9
where r
yc
and r
yt
are the uniaxial compressive and tensile yield stresses, respectively. Note that if r
yc
r
yt
both criteria
reduce to the standard form of the von Mises criterion.
The hydrostatic component of the stress tensor may also be incorporated into the Tresca yield criterion (Bowden and
Jukes, 1972). In the Tresca criterion the yielding occurs when a critical value of the maximum shear stress r
s
is reached.
It is formulated as (Bowden and Jukes, 1972):
r
s

1
2
jr
i
r
j
j
max

r
yc
r
yt
r
yc
r
yt
1
2
r
yc
r
yt
r
yc
r
yt
r
1
r
2
r
3
10
The yield surface evaluated from the measured biaxial yield stresses is presented in Fig. 11 in principal stress space, i.e. max-
imum principal stress vs. minimum principal stress. The symbols designate the experimental data while the lines represent
the yield criteria. The gure also includes the yield strengths obtained in uniaxial tension and compression. It can be seen
that HDPE yield strength exhibits an important asymmetry. The validity of the three modied yield criteria together with
their original formis checked in Fig. 11. In reason of the important asymmetry, the standard forms of criteria agree with yield
data only in the rst quadrant and in the shear side. The envelopes of Bauwens (1970) and Raghava et al. (1973) criteria are
distorted ellipses, and the modied Tresca hexagon is inscribed in the Bauwens (1970) ellipse. Although dispersions are ob-
served, it can be seen that the experimental results are adequately tted by these modied criteria. They give the best cor-
relation essentially at high hydrostatic stresses and the worst one with the experimental yield strengths related to shearing.
Indeed, it can be seen that the shear yield stress obtained experimentally is lower than that obtained by the criteria. Ghorbel
(2008) found a similar result using a modied form of the DruckerPrager criterion; investigating semi-crystalline polymers
with crystallinity ratios varying from 21% to 74% the author pointed out a difference with the experimental shear yield stress
increasing with the crystallinity ratio.
Let us remind that the experimental determination of the yield onset remains somewhat subjective since it depends
strongly on the criterion chosen for its detection (Ward and Sweeney, 2004). It is now proposed to use the strain eld deter-
mined through DIC measurements to construct the biaxial yield envelope. The equivalent strain associated with the simple
shear yield strength was taken as reference and the corresponding applied loads in the case of buttery-shaped specimens
were extracted for every loading angle. Again, the local biaxial stresses were determined using the Mohr and Doyoyo (2002)
analytical expressions given by Eq. (7). The measured yield data under the different loading angles are plotted in Fig. 12. The
symbols designate the experimental data while the lines represent the yield criteria. The difference between the yield stress
in tension and that in compression becomes much less important. This does not mean that the response is not sensitive to
hydrostatic pressure; it just means that a less important asymmetry is found when the hybrid analyticalexperimental ap-
proach is used to detect the yield strengths of specimens in the region where the yielding occurs. The fact that the yield
strengths of notched round bar specimens are found weaker than those obtained from the biaxial tests for positive vertical
displacements may be attributed to the difference in stress state. The triaxial (dilatational) stress state, involved in the center
of notched round bar specimens, favors the micro-cavitation mechanism inducing a volumetric strain increase and then a
reduction of yield stress level. Although the differences are not of equal magnitude in all four quadrants, in Fig. 12, it can
-25
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
-25 -20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
minimum principal stress (MPa)
m
a
x
i
m
u
m

p
r
i
n
c
i
p
a
l

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
von Mises
Tresca
Bauwens (1970)
Raghava et al. (1973)
Modified Tresca
Fig. 11. Measured biaxial yield data and comparison with various yield criteria (open circles: biaxial data with combined shear/tension, solid circles: biaxial
data with combined shear/compression, open square: R80, solid square: UC).
be seen that the theoretical predictions well describe the HDPE yielding. The Bauwens (1970) and Raghava et al. (1973) cri-
teria are found identical and agree with the biaxial tension data in the rst quadrant of the gure. The modied Tresca cri-
terion is found in better agreement with yield on the shear and compression sides than the modied von Mises criteria.
The validity of these empirical yield criteria is now fairly well established. In what follows, it is proposed to examine a
micromechanical yield criterion based on the physical interpretation of the HDPE yielding.
3.2.2. A micromechanics-based criterion for yielding of semi-crystalline polymers
The semi-crystalline polymers may be also treated as two-phase heterogeneous materials, the effective contribution of
the crystalline and amorphous phases to the overall yield strength being treated in a composite framework. A crucial issue
concerns the representation of the microstructure for these heterogeneous materials. In semi-crystalline polymers,
crystalline and amorphous domains are coupled in a rather complex manner, the crystalline morphology being altered by
the amorphous phase volume fraction /
a
. This fact was conrmed by AFM inspection on different polyethylenes in a previ-
ous work (Ayoub et al., 2011) and reported here in Fig. 13. Isotropically distributed stacks of well dened crystalline lamella
are present in the high-crystalline polyethylenes while the lowest crystalline polyethylene displays fuzzy crystallites akin to
-25
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
-25 -20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
m
a
x
i
m
u
m

p
r
i
n
c
i
p
a
l

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
von Mises
Tresca
Bauwens (1970)
Raghava et al. (1973)
Modified Tresca
Fig. 12. Measured biaxial yield data using DIC and comparison with various yield criteria (open squares: biaxial data with combined shear/tension, solid
circles: biaxial data with combined shear/compression, solid square: UC).
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
amorphous phase volume fraction
y
i
e
l
d

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
a
= 0.1
a
= 0.2
a
= 0.3
a
= 0.85
a
= 0.7
a
= 0.28
Fig. 13. Variation of the tensile yield stress with the amorphous phase volume fraction (the solid lines represent predictions of the micromechanics-based
yield criterion the symbols designate the experimental data: the solid data points are issued from Ayoub et al. (2011) and the open data point is that
obtained in the present work using DIC).
fringed micelles. The high-crystalline morphology gives more importance to the stiff crystalline phase, probably by perco-
lation effect that provides a rigid matrix effect. Therefore, for high-crystalline polymers such as HDPE, the mesoscopic rep-
resentative volume element (RVE), from which the overall yield criterion is derived, consists of a percolated crystalline
matrix containing a discrete, randomly located and oriented, amorphous phase. Because the testing temperature is between
the glass transition temperature T
g
(about 20 C) and the melting temperature T
m
(130 C), the amorphous phase is in the
rubbery state. Therefore, the amorphous phase is assumed to have no plastic deformation, the local yielding exclusively
occurring in the crystalline phase. The yielding is a highly localized process, associated with irreversible deformations such
as coarse slip and fragmentation of lamellar blocks (Ward and Sweeney, 2004; Detrez et al., 2011). Since our objective is to
model the macroscopic (ensemble-volume averaged) yield strength, rather than the elementary microstructural deformation
mechanisms, the ensemble-volume averaged homogenization procedure (Nemat-Nasser and Hori, 1993) can be directly
used, the active interaction between crystalline and amorphous domains being considered as a rst-order factor for the ini-
tial yielding. The homogenization procedure proposed by Ju and Sun (2001) and latter extended to polymer nanocomposites
by Boutaleb et al. (2009) and Zari et al. (2011b) is used in the present work.
The standard form of the von Mises criterion is assumed for the crystalline phase:
3
2
rx : I
d
: rx
_ _
1=2
r
yt
0 11
in which rx represents the local stress at any material point x of the crystalline phase and r
yt
denotes its uniaxial tensile
yield stress. The term I
d
signies the deviatoric part of the fourth-order identity tensor I.
The macroscopic yield criterion is obtained from an ensemble-volume averaged homogenization procedure derived by Ju
and Sun (2001):
1 /
a
3
2
r
0
: hBi : r
0
_ _
1=2
r
yt
0 12
in which r
0
is the applied far-eld stress tensor and B is a fourth-order tensor written as:
B
ijkl
B
1
IK
d
ij
d
kl
B
2
IJ
d
ik
d
jl
d
il
d
jk
13
where d
ij
signies the Kronecker delta and, B
1
IK
and B
2
IJ
are given in Appendix A.
In formula (12), the angled bracket hi indicates the orientational average over all possible orientations. Note that the ap-
plied far-eld stress r
0
is independent of the local orientation of amorphous spheroidal inclusions, i.e. hr
0
i r
0
. It is related
to the macroscopic (ensemble-volume averaged) stress

r by the following relationship:
r
0
hPi : h
ri 14
in which P is a fourth-order tensor written as follows:
P I /
a
S I T
1
15
with
T /
a
S C
a
C
c
1
C
c
_ _
1
16
where S is the fourth-order Eshelbys tensor of amorphous spheroidal inclusions (its components are given in Appendix B)
and, C
a
and C
c
denote the elastic stiffness tensors of amorphous and crystalline phases, respectively.
It is worth noticing that if the amorphous phase volume fraction /
a
= 0 (i.e. /
c
= 1) the micromechanics-based yield cri-
terion reduces to the von Mises criterion. Even if the local yielding in the crystalline phase is controlled by the von Mises
yield criterion (which in its usual form is insensitive to hydrostatic pressure), the macroscopic yield surface does not obey
to the von Mises criterion but is sensitive to hydrostatic pressure (Boutaleb et al., 2009). This implies that the hydrostatic
pressure-dependence in semi-crystalline polymers is supposed entirely due to the presence of the amorphous phase.
In terms of the macroscopic stress, the micromechanics-based von Mises yield criterion takes the form:
1 /
a
3
2
h
ri : h
Bi : h
ri
_ _
1=2
r
yt
0 17
where

B P
T
B P.
Alternatively, a micromechanics-based Tresca yield criterion can be also formulated, in terms of the macroscopic princi-
pal stresses, as:
h
r
s
i
1
2
h
r
i
i h
r
j
i
max
18
For the micromechanics-based modeling the mechanical properties of each phase are required. The elastic properties of the
crystalline phase are those proposed by Choy and Leung (1985) assuming isotropy. The uniaxial tensile yield stress of the
crystalline matrix is obtained by extrapolation of data reported in Fig. 13: a value of 17 MPa was obtained. The amorphous
phase elastic modulus E
a
and Poissons ratio m
a
are taken equal to 4.5 MPa and 0.499, respectively (Bdoui et al., 2006). Uni-
axial tensile test results on polyethylene plates were obtained over a wide range of crystallinities (from 15% to 72%) in a pre-
vious study (Ayoub et al., 2011). The stressstrain responses were thoroughly investigated in that study and therefore will
not be repeated here. The yield strengths were determined from the deviation of the linear elastic response and the results
plotted in Fig. 13 against the amorphous phase volume fraction. Since the load is mainly borne by the stiff crystalline phase,
the yield strength decreases with an increase in amorphous phase content. Further, it was pointed out in Ayoub et al. (2011)
that the increase in amorphous phase content implies the transition from thermoplastic-like to rubber-like mechanical
behavior. Note that although the strain hardening response is largely predominant for the low crystallinity material, a
yield-like event can still be detected. The HDPE yield stress obtained in the present work using the hybrid analyticalexper-
imental approach is in agreement with those determined from the results presented in Ayoub et al. (2011). This is in support
of the method used to construct the biaxial yield envelope. The theoretical predictions of the tensile yield stress are given in
Fig. 13 for different aspect ratios a
a
of the amorphous phase (dened as the ratio between the major length and the minor
length of the amorphous spheroidal inclusion). The micromechanics-based yield criterion, and thus the suggested morpho-
logical representation, is applicable only when the crystalline phase percolates so that it constitutes the continuous phase
(i.e. the matrix). For this reason, only low level of the amorphous phase volume fraction must be considered in the compar-
ison with experimental data. In this regard, the theory provides reasonable predictions of the uniaxial tensile yield onset. At
low crystal volume fractions, it is the response of the rubbery amorphous phase which predominates and the suggested
-25
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
-25 -20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
m
a
x
i
m
u
m

p
r
i
n
c
i
p
a
l

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
Two-phases criterion - von Mises
Two-phases criterion - Tresca
Fig. 14. Measured biaxial yield data using DIC and comparison with the micromechanics-based yield criterion.
-25
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
-25 -20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
m
a
x
i
m
u
m

p
r
i
n
c
i
p
a
l

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
a
= 0.1
a
= 0.29
a
= 0.5
Fig. 15. Effect of amorphous phase content on the yield surface predicted by the micromechanics-based yield criterion.
morphological representation is no more valid since it should be inverted, i.e. an amorphous matrix and discrete crystallites
as reinforcements. This kind of morphological representation was recently followed by several authors (Bdoui et al., 2006;
Gueguen et al., 2010) to micromechanically predict the elastic stiffness of semi-crystalline polymers. It is worth noticing that
in the specic case of an amorphous phase in the glassy state, the crystalline and amorphous phases would have comparable
shear moduli and the local yielding should be therefore considered in both phases.
Fig. 14 shows that the micromechanics-based yield criterion provides a good description of biaxial yield strengths, the
Tresca-based criterion showing better agreement than the von Mises one. It can therefore be concluded that a micromechan-
ics-based yield criterion can predict yielding of high-crystalline polymers subjected to biaxial stress states. The inuence of
the amorphous phase content on the theoretical predictions of macroscopic yielding is presented in Fig. 15. To provide sup-
port for the yield criterion based upon the suggested morphological representation this inuence will be also examined
experimentally in future investigations. To improve correlation between theory and experiment, further investigations
are also needed to incorporate into the theory the asymmetric character of the yield surface.
4. Conclusion
The yield behavior of HDPE material was investigated under various stress states. The relevance of classical yield criteria
was veried based on the analysis of the measured biaxial yield envelope. It was found that the experimental data are ade-
quately tted by these criteria. All these criteria involved the use of von Mises or Tresca criteria with pertinent modications,
but remaining essentially empirical. A theoretical exploration of the yield onset was also achieved using the micromechanics
framework based on a two-phase representation of the HDPE microstructure, consisting of a percolated crystalline matrix
and a discrete amorphous phase. Good agreement with experimental biaxial yield data was illustrated. These results imply
that the biaxial yield envelope of high-crystalline polymers can be predicted by a micromechanics-based yield locus based
upon the suggested morphological representation.
The post-yield constitutive response of HDPE under biaxial loading, which requires the direct measures of the horizontal
reaction force, will be treated in future investigations. Further works should be also conducted to establish the evolution of
the yield surface with deformation.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank STPM CHIALI for providing the HDPE pipes. They also gratefully acknowledge the Inter-
national Campus on Safety and Intermodality in Transportation for its nancial support.
Appendix A
The parameters in formula (13) are given by:
B
1
IK

1
3

2/
a
47251mc
2
D
II
D
KK
335m
2
c
70m
c
36D
IK
750m
2
c
59m
c
8D
I
D
K
2175m
2
c
343m
c
103
_
_
_
_
2125m
c
21 2m
c
C
II
C
KK
2125m
c
231 2m
c
C
II
D
K
C
KK
D
I
15751 2m
c
2
C
II
C
KK
_
_
_
_
B
2
IJ

1
2

/
a
15751mc
2
D
IJ
D
IJ
70m
2
c
140m
c
72D
IJ
175m
2
c
266m
c
75
D
I
D
J
2
350m
2
c
476m
c
164
_
_
_
_
A:1
where D
I
, D
IJ
, D
IJ
and C
IJ
are dened by:
D
1

3 1a
4
a
f a
2
a

1a
4
a
;
D
2
D
3

1
2
3 D
1
;
D
11

5 2a
4
a
3a
4
a
f a
2
a

21a
4
a
2
;
D
12
D
21
D
13
D
31

15a
4
a
312a
4
a
f a
2
a

4 1a
4
a

2
;
D
22
D
23
D
32
D
33

1
8
15 3D
11
4D
12
A:2
with f a
a
expressed as:
f a
a

cosh
1
aa
aa
a
2
a
1
p
if a
a
> 1
cos
1
aa
aa
1a
2
a
p
if a
a
< 1
_
_
A:3
D
IJ
2V
IJ
N
IJ
A:4
and
C
I1
C
I2
C
I3
_
_
_
U
11
2V
11
W
11
U
21
M
21
U
31
M
31
U
12
M
12
U
22
2V
22
W
22
U
32
M
32
U
13
M
13
U
23
M
23
U
33
2V
33
W
33
_
_
_
_
1
U
I1
M
I1
U
I2
M
I2
U
I3
M
I3
_
_
_
_
A:5
with
U
11
4m
c

2
a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a
4m
c

4
3a
2
a
1
;
U
12
U
13
4m
c

2a
2
a
1
a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a
4m
c

2a
2
a
a
2
a
1
;
U
21
U
31
2m
c

2a
2
a
1
a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a

2a
2
a
a
2
a
1
;
U
22
U
23
U
32
U
33
2m
c

4a
2
a
1
4 a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a

a
2
a
2 a
2
a
1
;
A:6
V
11
4m
c

4a
2
a
2
a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a
4m
c

12a
2
a
8
3a
2
a
1
;
V
12
V
21
V
13
V
31
m
c

a
2
a
2
a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a
2m
c

2
a
2
a
1
;
V
22
V
23
V
32
V
33
2m
c

4a
2
a
7
4a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a

a
2
a
2a
2
a
1
;
A:7
M
IJ

kc l
a
kal
c
l
a
l
c
2l
a
l
c
3kakc
;
N
IJ

l
c
2l
a
l
c
;
W
II
M
II
2N
II
:
A:8
in which k and l are the Lames constants and ga
a
is given by:
ga
a

aa
a
2
a
1
3=2
a
a
a
2
a
1
1=2
cosh
1
a
a
_ _
if a
a
> 1
aa
1a
2
a
3=2
cos
1
a
a
a
a
1 a
2
a
1=2
_ _
if a
a
< 1
_
_
A:9
Appendix B
The components of the Eshelbys tensor are given by Nemat-Nasser and Hori (1993):
S
1111
S
2222

3
81mc
a
2
a
a
2
a
1

1
41mc
1 2m
c

9
4a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a
S
3333

1
21mc
1 2m
c

3a
2
a
1
a
2
a
1
1 2m
c

3a
2
a
a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a
_ _
S
1122
S
2211

1
41mc
a
2
a
2a
2
a
1
1 2m
c

3
4a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a
_ _
S
1133
S
2233

1
21mc
a
2
a
a
2
a
1

1
41mc
1 2m
c

3a
2
a
a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a
S
3311
S
3322

1
2 1mc
1 2m
c

1
a
2
a
1

1
21mc
1 2m
c

3
2a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a
S
1313
S
2323

1
41mc
1 2m
c

a
2
a
1
a
2
a
1

1
2
1 2m
c

3a
2
a
1
a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a
_ _
S
1212

1
41mc
a
2
a
2a
2
a
1
1 2m
c

3
4a
2
a
1
_ _
ga
a
_ _
B:1
References
Ames, N.M., Srivastava, V., Chester, S.A., Anand, L., 2009. A thermo-mechanically coupled theory for large deformations of amorphous polymers. Part II:
applications. International Journal of Plasticity 25, 14951539.
Anand, L., Ames, N.M., Srivastava, V., Chester, S.A., 2009. A thermo-mechanically coupled theory for large deformations of amorphous polymers. Part I:
formulation. International Journal of Plasticity 25, 14741494.
Arcan, M., Hashin, Z., Voloshin, A., 1978. Method to produce uniform plane stress states with applications to ber-reinforced materials. Experimental
Mechanics 18, 141146.
Argon, A.S., 1973. A theory for the low temperature plastic deformation of glassy polymers. Philosophical Magazine 28, 839865.
Ayoub, G., Zari, F., Nat-Abdelaziz, M., Gloaguen, J.M., 2010. Modelling large deformation behaviour under loadingunloading of semicrystalline polymers:
application to a high density polyethylene. International Journal of Plasticity 26, 329347.
Ayoub, G., Zari, F., Frderix, C., Gloaguen, J.M., Nat-Abdelaziz, M., Seguela, R., Lefebvre, J.M., 2011. Effects of crystal content on the mechanical behaviour of
polyethylene under nite strains: experiments and constitutive modelling. International Journal of Plasticity 27, 492511.
Bardenhagen, S.G., Stout, M.G., Gray, G.T., 1997. Three-dimensional, nite deformation, viscoplastic constitutive models for polymeric materials. Mechanics
of Materials 25, 235253.
Bartczak, Z., Argon, A.S., Cohen, R.E., 1994. Texture evolution in large strain simple shear deformation of high density polyethylene. Polymer 35, 34273441.
Bauwens, J.C., 1970. Yield condition and propagation of Lders lines in tension-torsion experiments on poly(vinyl chloride). Journal of Polymer Science Part
A-2: Polymer Physics 8, 893901.
Bdoui, F., Diani, J., Rgnier, G., Seiler, W., 2006. Micromechanical modelling of isotropic elastic behaviour of semicrystalline polymers. Acta Materialia 54,
15131523.
Belbachir, S., Zari, F., Ayoub, G., Maschke, U., Nat-Abdelaziz, M., Gloaguen, J.M., Benguediab, M., Lefebvre, J.M., 2010. Modelling of photodegradation effect
on elastic-viscoplastic behaviour of amorphous polylactic acid lms. Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids 58, 241255.
Boisot, G., Laiarinandrasana, L., Besson, J., Fond, C., Hochstetter, G., 2011. Experimental investigations and modeling of volume change induced by void
growth in polyamide 11. International Journal of Solids and Structures 48, 26422654.
Boulahia, R., Gloaguen, J.M., Zari, F., Nat-Abdelaziz, M., Seguela, R., Boukharouba, T., Lefebvre, J.M., 2009. Deformation behaviour and mechanical properties
of polypropylene processed by equal channel angular extrusion: effects of back-pressure and extrusion velocity. Polymer 50, 55085517.
Boutaleb, S., Zari, F., Mesbah, A., Nat-Abdelaziz, M., Gloaguen, J.M., Boukharouba, T., Lefebvre, J.M., 2009. Micromechanics-based modelling of stiffness and
yield stress for silica/polymer nanocomposites. International Journal of Solids and Structures 46, 17161726.
Bowden, P.B., Jukes, J.A., 1972. The plastic ow of isotropic polymers. Journal of Materials Science 7, 5263.
Boyce, M.C., Parks, D.M., Argon, A.S., 1988. Large inelastic deformation of glassy polymers. Part I: rate dependent constitutive model. Mechanics of Materials
7, 1533.
Boyce, M.C., Socrate, S., Llana, P.G., 2000. Constitutive model for the nite deformation stressstrain behavior of poly(ethylene terephthalate) above the
glass transition. Polymer 41, 21832201.
Bridgman, P.W., 1944. The stress distribution at the neck of a tension specimen. Transactions ASME 32, 553574.
Brooks, N.W., Duckett, R.A., Ward, I.M., 1998. Temperature and strain-rate dependence of yield stress of polyethylene. Journal of Polymer Science Part B:
Polymer Physics 36, 21772189.
Buckley, C.P., Jones, D.C., 1995. Glassrubber constitutive model for amorphous polymers near the glass transition. Polymer 36, 33013312.
Castagnet, S., Deburck, Y., 2007. Relative inuence of microstructure and macroscopic triaxiality on cavitation damage in a semi-crystalline polymer.
Materials Science and Engineering A448, 5666.
Chaboche, J.L., 1997. Thermodynamic formulation of constitutive equations and application to the viscoplasticity and viscoelasticity of metals and
polymers. International Journal of Solids and Structures 18, 22392254.
Choy, C.L., Leung, W.P., 1985. Elastic moduli of ultradrawn polyethylene. Journal of Polymer Science. Part B: Polymer Physics 23, 17591780.
Colak, O.U., 2005. Modeling deformation behavior of polymers with viscoplasticity theory based on overstress. International Journal of Plasticity 21, 145
160.
Detrez, F., Cantournet, S., Seguela, R., 2011. Plasticity/damage coupling in semi-crystalline polymers prior to yielding: micromechanisms and damage law
identication. Polymer 52, 19982008.
Doyoyo, M., Wierzbicki, T., 2003. Experimental studies on the yield behavior of ductile and brittle aluminum foams. International Journal of Plasticity 19,
11951214.
Drozdov, A.D., Christiansen, J., 2003. Modelling the viscoplastic response of polyethylene in uniaxial loadingunloading tests. Mechanics Research
Communications 30, 431442.
Drozdov, A.D., 2009. Mullins effect in semicrystalline polymers. International Journal of Solids and Structures 46, 33363345.
Dusunceli, N., Colak, O.U., 2008. Modelling effects of degree of crystallinity on mechanical behavior of semicrystalline polymers. International Journal of
Plasticity 24, 12241242.
Epee, A.F., Lauro, F., Bennani, B., Bourel, B., 2011. Constitutive model for a semi-crystalline polymer under dynamic loading. International Journal of Solids
and Structures 48, 15901599.
Escaig, B., 1997. A physical model of the pressure dependence and biaxial mechanical properties of solid polymers. Polymer Engineering and Science 37,
16411654.
Eyring, H., 1936. Viscosity, plasticity, and diffusion as examples of absolute reaction rates. Journal of Chemistry and Physics 4, 283291.
Fasce, L.A., Pettarin, V., Marano, C., Rink, M., Frontini, P.M., 2008. Biaxial yielding of polypropylene/elastomeric polyolen blends: effect of elastomer content
and thermal annealing. Polymer Engineering and Science 48, 14141423.
Farrokh, B., Khan, A.S., 2010. A strain rate dependent yield criterion for isotropic polymers: low to high rates of loading. European Journal of Mechanics A/
Solids 29, 274282.
Frank, G.J., Brockman, R.A., 2001. A viscoelasticviscoplastic constitutive model for glassy polymers. International Journal of Solids and Structures 38 (5149
805), 5164.
Ghorbel, E., 2008. A viscoplastic constitutive model for polymeric materials. International Journal of Plasticity 24, 20322058.
Gsell, C., Hiver, J.M., Dahoun, A., Souahi, A., 1992. Video-controlled tensile testing of polymers and metals beyond the necking point. Journal of Materials
Science 27, 50315039.
Gsell, C., Hiver, J.M., Dahoun, A., 2002. Experimental characterization of deformation damage in solid polymers under tension, and its interrelation with
necking. International Journal of Solids and Structures 39, 38573872.
Gueguen, O., Ahzi, S., Makradi, A., Belouetta, S., 2010. A new three-phase model to estimate the effective elastic properties of semi-crystalline polymers:
application to PET. Mechanics of Materials 42, 110.
Ju, J.W., Sun, L.Z., 2001. Effective elastoplastic behavior of metal matrix composites containing randomly located aligned spheroidal inhomogeneities. Part I:
micromechanics-based formulation. International Journal of Solids and Structures 38, 183201.
Khan, A., Zhang, H., 2001. Finite deformation of a polymer: experiments and modeling. International Journal of Plasticity 17, 11671188.
Lesser, A.J., Kody, R.S., 1997. A generalized model for the yield behavior of epoxy networks in multiaxial stress states. Journal of Polymer Science Part B:
Polymer Physics 35, 16111619.
Mae, H., 2009. Characterization of material ductility of PP/EPR/talc blend under wide range of stress triaxiality at intermediate and high strain rates. Journal
of Applied Polymer Science 111, 854868.
Mears, D.R., Pae, K.D., Sauer, J.A., 1969. Effects of hydrostatic pressure on the mechanical behavior of polyethylene and polypropylene. Journal of Applied
Physics 40, 42294237.
Mohr, D., Doyoyo, M., 2002. Analysis of the Arcan apparatus in the clamped conguration. Journal of Composite Materials 36, 25832594.
Mohr, D., Henn, S., 2007. Calibration of stress-triaxiality dependent crack formation criteria: a new hybrid experimentalnumerical method. Experimental
Mechanics 47, 805820.
Mohr, D., Ebnoether, F., 2009. Plasticity and fracture of martensitic boron steel under plane stress conditions. International Journal of Solids and Structures
46, 35353547.
Nemat-Nasser, S., Hori, M., 1993. Micromechanics: overall properties of heterogeneous materials, North-Holland, New York.
Pyrz, M., Zari, F., 2007. Identication of viscoplastic parameters of phenomenological constitutive equations for polymers by deterministic and evolutionary
approach. Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering 15, 85103.
Quinson, R., Perez, J., Rink, M., Pavan, A., 1997. Yield criteria for amorphous glassy polymers. Journal of Materials Science 32, 13711379.
Raghava, R.S., Caddell, R.M., Yeh, G.S.Y., 1973. The macroscopic yield behaviour of polymers. Journal of Materials Science 8, 225232.
Regrain, C., Laiarinandrasana, L., Toillon, S., Sa, K., 2009. Multi-mechanism models for semi-crystalline polymer: constitutive relations and nite element
implementation. International Journal of Plasticity 25, 12531279.
Richeton, J., Ahzi, S., Vecchio, K.S., Jiang, F.C., Adharapurapu, R.R., 2006. Inuence of temperature and strain rate on the mechanical behavior of three
amorphous polymers: characterization and modeling of the compressive yield stress. International Journal of Solids and Structures 43, 23182335.
Richeton, J., Ahzi, S., Vecchio, K.S., Jiang, F.C., Makradi, A., 2007. Modeling and validation of the large deformation inelastic response of amorphous polymers
over a wide range of temperatures and strain rates. International Journal of Solids and Structures 44, 79387954.
Schultz, J.M., 1984. Microstructural aspects of failure in semicrystalline polymers. Polymer Engineering and Science 24, 770785.
Srivastava, V., Chester, S.A., Ames, N.M., Anand, L., 2010. A thermo-mechanically-coupled large-deformation theory for amorphous polymers in a
temperature range which spans their glass transition. International Journal of Plasticity 26, 11381182.
Sternstein, S.S., Ongchin, L., Silverman, A., 1968. Inhomogeneous deformation and yielding of glasslike high polymers. Applied Polymer Symposia 7, 175
199.
Tervoort, T.A., Smit, R.J.M., Brekelmans, W.A.M., Govaert, L.E., 1997. A constitutive equation for the elasto-viscoplastic deformation of glassy polymers.
Mechanics of Time-Dependent Materials 1, 269291.
Ward, I.M., 1971. Review: the yield behaviour of polymers. Journal of Materials Science 6, 13971417.
Ward, I., Sweeney, J., 2004. An Introduction to the Mechanical Properties of Solid Polymers, 2nd ed. Wiley.
Wunderlich, B., 1980. Macromolecular Physics. Crystal Melting, vol. 3. Academic Press.
Zari, F., Woznica, K., Nat-Abdelaziz, M., 2005. Phenomenological nonlinear modelling of glassy polymers. Comptes Rendus Mecanique 333, 359364.
Zari, F., Nat-Abdelaziz, M., Woznica, K., Gloaguen, J.M., 2007. Elasto-viscoplastic constitutive equations for the description of glassy polymers behavior at
constant strain rate. Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology 129, 2935.
Zari, F., Nat-Abdelaziz, M., Gloaguen, J.M., Lefebvre, J.M., 2008. Modelling of the elasto-viscoplastic damage behaviour of glassy polymers. International
Journal of Plasticity 24, 945965.
Zari, F., Nat-Abdelaziz, M., Gloaguen, J.M., Lefebvre, J.M., 2010. Constitutive modelling of the large inelastic deformation behaviour of rubber-toughened
poly(methyl methacrylate): effects of strain rate, temperature and rubber-phase volume fraction. Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and
Engineering 18, 122.
Zari, F., Nat-Abdelaziz, M., Gloaguen, J.M., Lefebvre, J.M., 2011a. A physically-based constitutive model for anisotropic damage in rubber-toughened glassy
polymers during nite deformation. International Journal of Plasticity 27, 2551.
Zari, F., Gloaguen, J.M., Nat-Abdelaziz, M., Mesbah, A., Lefebvre, J.M., 2011b. Study of the effect of size and clay structural parameters on the yield and post-
yield response of polymer/clay nanocomposites via a multiscale micromechanical modelling. Acta Materialia 59, 38513863.

1 s2.0 S0749641913001150 Main

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

1 s2.0 S0749641913001150 Main

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Experiments and modeling of high-crystalline polyethylene

yielding under different stress states

You might also like