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Isothermal crystallization of isotactic polypropylene at high pressures (from 200 to 250 MPa) have been carried out using a high-pressure dilatometer leading to a pure γ-form, as revealed by WAXD. The melting temperatures at the same pressures have been determined to assess the pressure effect on the equilibrium melting temperature by the Hoffman-Weeks analysis. The crystallization times have been analyzed according to the Hoffman-Lauritzen theory and corrections introduced to take into account the pressure effects on both the equilibrium melting temperature and the diffusion process. This analysis showed a transition from crystallization regime II to regime III for an undercooling of 53.7 K. The lateral and fold surface free energies were evaluated. Furthermore, the morphology of the samples investigated by polarized light microscopy, density measurements, and SAXS depends only on the crystallization undercooling, as a result of the influence of pressure on the equilibrium melting temperature. Moreover, the lamellar thickness experimental data agree well with the theoretical calculation.

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International audienceThe ply elastic constants needed for classical lamination theory analysis of multi-directional laminates may differ from those obtained from unidirectional laminates because of three dimensional effects. In addition, the unidirectional laminates may not be available for testing. In such cases, full-field displacement measurements offer the potential of identifying several material properties simultaneously. For that, it is desirable to create complex displacement fields that are strongly influenced by all the elastic constants. In this work, we explore the potential of using a laminated plate with an open-hole under traction loading to achieve that and identify all four ply elastic constants (E 1 , E 2 , ν 12 , G 12 ) at once. However, the accuracy of the identified properties may not be as good as properties measured from individual tests due to the complexity of the experiment, the relative insensitivity of the measured quantities to some of the properties and the various possible sources of uncertainty. It is thus important to quantify the uncertainty (or confidence) with which these properties are identified. Here, Bayesian identification is used for this purpose, because it can readily model all the uncertainties in the analysis and measurements, and because it provides the full coupled probability distribution of the identified material properties. In addition, it offers the potential to combine properties identified based on substantially different experiments. The full-field measurement is obtained by moiré interferometry. For computational efficiency the Bayesian approach was applied to a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) of the displacement fields. The analysis showed that the four orthotropic elastic constants are determined with quite different confidence levels as well as with significant correlation. Comparison with manufacturing specifications showed substantial difference in one constant, and this conclusion agreed with earlier measurement of that constant by a traditional four-point bending test. It is possible that the POD approach did not take full advantage of the copious data provided by the full field measurements, and for that reason that data is provided for others to use (as on line material attached to the article)