Aging-dependent strain localization in amorphous glassy polymers: From necking to shear banding

This study investigates the influence of physical aging on the tensile deformation behaviors of poly(ethylene terephthalate)-glycol. The polymers are subjected to a quenched and an annealed heat treatment, followed by deformation in tension. The digital image correlation (DIC) is used to capture the surface strain. The DIC results show that the deformation localization occurs in the post-yield strain softening region. The quenched and annealed polymers exhibit different localization types, representing as necking for quenched polymers and shear banding for annealed polymers. With the help of the DIC, the nucleation and propagation of the localization zones are fully captured. The DIC results show that the reference location with the maximum strain does not change with the deformation. At the same strain level, the maximum strain in the shear bands is much larger than that in the necks, which explains the failure strain of the annealed polymers is smaller than the quenched polymers. The stretch rate also has a strong effect on the localization behaviors. A larger stretch rate results in a stronger localization due to an increase in the amount of strain softening.