| Abstract: | The environmental stress cracking (ESC) of polyethylene has been studied under conditions of dynamic equilibrium with the liquid for low-swelling liquids. Even among active ESC agents, there is a clear relative order of efficiency. It has been shown that the liquid becomes less efficient with increasing equilibrium swelling. This fact has been attributed to local plasticization of the crack front leading, in turn, to a reduction in the high-stress concentrations associated with a wedge-shaped crack. Some semiquantitative ideas are proposed in an attempt to explain the relation between ESC efficiency and volume/volume sorption. |
