Damage zone evolution of PVC/MBS blends

The development of the stress‐whitened damage zone in poly(vinyl chloride) and its blends with methyl methacrylate‐butadiene‐styrene (MBS) core/shell rubber was investigated as a function of rubber content and temperature in a triaxial stress state obtained by slow tensile loading of specimens with a semicircular notch. The onset of stress‐whitening was characterized by a critical mean stress and a critical volume strain. Both of these criticality parameters were affected by temperature, where the blends exhibited a weaker temperature dependence in critical volume strain independent of the rubber content.