2005 Volume 54 Issue 9 Pages 915-920
We examined applicability of highly non-equilibrium states in a polymer glass to its cold working. To study the cold-workability of a polymer glass, we first deformed poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) in uniaxial compression up to the yield point at 30°C to have its highly non-equilibrium state and subsequently stretched it. The tensile fracture strain of such PMMA specimens was nearly ten times as large as that for specimens simply stretched without pre-compression. When the specimens compressed up to the yield point (εc = 0.2) were left under the strained state for various time periods, the tensile fracture strain increased with length of the time period. The pre-compression up to the yield point was confirmed as a quite effective procedure for cold working of brittle plastics.
