Failure behavior of high density polyethylene and high impact polystyrene: An experimental study by damage methods

This work focuses on the damage of two thermoplastic materials; high density polyethylene (HDPE) and high impact polystyrene (HIPS) . The contribution of this work is to determine the lifetime of these polymers by proposing a new static method, including different notches with different opening lengths instead of depth change, to predict the damage behavior of HDPE and HIPS. Three damage models were used to predict the lifetime of these polymers by a proposed simple method compared to the old complex methods. Chemical and microscopic analyses including Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were performed. The results indicated that the shape of the notch and the morphological nature of the polymer influence the mechanical behavior of these polymers. The proposed experimental factors (life fraction as a function of notches) are in very good agreement with the experimental results.