Photomechanical properties of some birefringent polymers around their glass transition temperatures

This paper describes an investigation and comparison of the optical and mechanical properties of the three polymers-PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate), CT200 and MY750 (both based on bisphenol-A epichlorohydrin). The work was undertaken with the specific purpose of assessing the suitability of these polymers for use in contact studies involving three-dimensional photoelasticity and the stress-freezing technique. The optical property investigated was the variation of photoelastic fringe constant with maximum stress-freezing temperature. The mechanical properties sought were the variation of Young's modulus with temperature and the stress-strain behavior at the stress-freezing temperature. The effects of the magnitude of stress and the soak time in the thermal cycle were also investigated for the MY750 resin. The results provide the optimum peak temperature for the thermal cycle to achieve repeatable values of Young's modulus and fringe constant during stress freezing. The nonlinear stress-strain behavior is quantified and should be a useful reference. The dependence of strain on load and soak time is also shown and is useful in specifying the optimum cycle time for stress freezing and the appropriate stress level. It was concluded that the resin MY750 was the most suitable for photoelastic applications which involved high localized stress, such as contact problems or fracture mechanics studies.