Shear yielding of biaxially oriented styrene‐acrylonitrile copolymer films

Abstract The shear yielding processes in the deformation of biaxially oriented styrene‐acrylonitrile (SAN) copolymer films (machine oriented with draw ratio = 6.9 in the machine direction and 2.9 in the transverse direction) were studied. In the transverse direction, two sets of shear bands with an intersection angle of about 123.6 degrees (61.8 degrees with the tensile axis) were developed. When necking occurred, the bands in the necked region were thin and discontinuous with an intersection angle of about 81 degrees. In the machine direction, shear bands appeared to be short and diffused with an intersection angle of about 119.2 degrees. Only a slight necking effect was observed. The Luders strain in the transverse direction was about 0.56 and in the machine direction, about 0.16. The shearstrain‐volume of activation obtained from the strain rate dependence of shear stress was about 3440 ± 400 Å 3 in the machine direction and 2700 ± 500 Å 3 in the transverse direction. The work hardening behavior in both directions seemed to follow a linear relationship between 1n (tensile stress) and tensile strain at large strains. From a consideration of localized shearing toward tensile axis, the fraction of deformed materials was calculated. These observations indicated that (1) a strong orientation hardening effect existed in unbalanced biaxially oriented films, resulting from the difference of the amount of deformable materials between individual directions; and (2) deformation proceeded by shear banding with the high orientation direction involved more correlated molecular segments than the low orientation direction during the activation process.