TENSILE YIELDING AND MICROSTRUCTURES OF BLENDS OF ISOTACTIC POLYPROPYLENE AND LINEAR LOW-DENSITY POLYETHYLENE

Thin sheets of isotactic polypropylene (iPP) and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) blends were studied by tensile testing, optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Eyring's two-process yielding theory was used to analyze the data of yield stress as a function of strain rate and temperature, and satisfactory curve-fitting results were obtained. Furthermore, stress-whitening was found to have occurred in the necked regions of tensile specimens under a certain range of yielding conditions. These conditions corresponded to the activation of Process II yielding of Eyring's theory. The whitening was found to be a result of formation of microvoids that initiated at the interface between iPP and LLDPE. (C) 1995 John Wiley and Sons, Inc.