| Abstract: | Uniaxial deformation of polyethylene single crystals has been reported in the previous papers of this series. This paper presents an extension of this study to the simultaneous biaxial deformation of polyethylene single crystals. Diamond-shaped crystals containing {110} fold domains and truncated crystals containing in addition {100} domains were used in these experiments. The results show that these crystals fail at deformations as low as 6%, giving rise to cracks predominantly in the a direction. Electron diffraction patterns suggest that {310} twinning is more favorable than {110} twinning at the lower degrees of deformation. No phase change from orthorhombic to monoclinic unit cell is observed. |
