Craze initiation, crack growth, and lifetime trends in fatigue of poly(vinylchloride)

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Abstract
The fatigue behavior of pure poly (vinylchloride) (PVC) and a PVC pipe compound has been investigated. Unnotched S‐N lifetime, fatigue‐crack growth, and craze/crack‐initiation data are presented. The data trends, coupled with direct‐microscopic observation, suggest that the unnotched‐specimen lifetime in fatigue is dominated by the craze/crack‐initiation process. This differs from the observed consistency of crack propagation and specimen‐lifetime trends in several other polymers, whose failure can be traced to the initiation and growth to instability of a single dominant craze/crack.