Investigations of environmental stress cracking resistance of LDPE/UHMWPE and LDPE/EVA blends

Low density polyethylene (LDPE)/ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) and LDPE/poly(ethylene-co-vinylacetate) (EVA) blends were tested and compared with respect to their environmental stress cracking resistance (ESCR) using the Bell telephone test. The time to failure in the ESCR test improved with increasing UHMWPE and EVA content, and considerable improvements were produced when an UHMWPE weight fraction of 0.4 and EVA weight fraction of 0.03 were used. Thermal and morphological studies were conducted, and a relationship between morphological features and composition was established. Furthermore, the failed specimens were further characterised by scanning electron microscopy and fractographic methodology to investigate the failure mechanism for ESCR samples.