Stress Chemiluminescence: Predictive Applications to Polymer Failure

摘要

A computer-controlled stress chemiluminescence instrument has been designed and assembled. A LSI-11 microprocessor is used to ramp the stepping motor which applies the stress to the polymer sample. The computer also acquires data from the load cell and the photon counter, and outputs the essential data to either a printer or floppy disk for storage and subsequent manipulation. The stress chemiluminescence technique has been previously reported by Levy and Fanter: the significant result of this work is the correlation of an enhanced chemiluminescence signal in a low stress environment with the subsequent premature mechanical failure of the polymer sample. Currently only epoxy and nylon samples have been examined; not all epoxy polymers appear to have this correlation between mechanical failure and stress chemiluminescence signal (of course, previous work by Levy and Fanter indicated that not all polymers exhibit a correlation between stress and chemiluminescence). The technique will be extended to fibers, composites, and polymers subjected to accelerated aging.