Crazing as quasifracture in an oriented viscoelastic medium

Crazes of different types occur in polymeric systems. Long, sparse crazes develop in less oriented molecular systems, while fine, short, dense crazes occur in highly oriented molecular systems. Different crazing mechanisms and different models may have to be studied for a better understanding of these differences. However, in this report, using one model and one theory, an analysis has been made of the differences in the geometry of craze development. By emphasizing the mechanism of molecular orientation, it is found that the basic differences are essentially attributable to the variation of the anisotropy of the material system as a result of large deformation rather than to any fundamental differences in the crazing mechanism.