Work of Fracture and Strain-induced Cold Crystallization Behavior of Amorphous Copolyester Sheets

The toughness of amorphous copolyester sheets was assessed by the essential work of fracture (EWF) concept. While the yielding-related work of fracture terms did not change significantly, the necking-related parameters strongly decreased with decreasing entanglement density of the copolyesters having different amounts of cyclohexylenedimethylene (CHDM) units in their backbones. Furthermore, copolyesters with high CHDM content and thus less entanglement density showed full recovery of the necked region beyond the glass transition temperature, i.e. the ‘plastic’ zone in the related specimens formed by cold drawing and not by true plastic deformation. By contrast, the copolyester with negligible amount of CHDM did not show this shape recovery. Modulated differential scanning calorimetry (MDSC) revealed that the necking in the latter system was accompanied by strain-induced crystallization. The superior work hardening in the necking stage of the respective poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) specimens can thus be ascribed to stretching of the entanglement network with superimposed crystallization. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.