Study of the stress oscillation phenomenon in syndiotactic polypropylene/montmorillonite nanocomposites

The phenomenon of Stress Oscillation (SO) was studied in syndiotactic polypropylene and syndiotactic polypropylene nanocomposites with montmorillonite. The effect was provoked by varying the crosshead speed during tensile testing of thin stripes. The internal morphology of the stress oscillated specimens was studied by scanning electron microscopy on chemically etched samples revealing that cavitation prevails inside the opaque stripes of the yielded areas. Differential scanning calorimetry proved that there exists virtually no crystallinity differentiation between the characteristic alternating opaque/transparent stripes that mark the stress oscillation during necking. Finally a simple finite element model of the necking area of the specimens revealed non-uniform internal stress distributions of yield-point magnitudes.