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Structural changes in polylactide/polybutylene terephthalate (PLA/PBT) and glycol‐modified polyethylene terephthalate/polybutylene terephthalate (PET‐G/PBT) polymer blends at a pressure of 1 GPa and room temperature in combination with shear deformation are investigated. High pressure torsion (HPT) is chosen as the compatibilization technique. Based on solid‐state NMR data, it is found that the compatibility of immiscible polymers is significantly improved under high pressure conditions in combination with shear deformation. It is assumed that the thickness of the deformed polymer layers decreases to the thickness of the interphase and it can be a fully interphase material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mechanical behavior of polymer materials is heavily influenced by a phenomenon known as crazing. Crazing is a precursor to damage and leads to the formation of cracks as it grows in both thickness and tip size. The current research employs an in situ SEM method to investigate the initiation and progression of crazing in all-biopolymeric blends based on Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). To this end, two chemically different grades of PHA, namely poly(hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) and poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBHV), were melt-blended with polybutyrate adipate terephthalate (PBAT). The obtained morphologies of blends, the droplet/fibrillar matrix, were highly influenced by the plasticity of the matrices as well as the content of the minor phase. Increasing the concentration of PBAT from 15 to 30 wt.% resulted in the brittle to ductile transition. It changed the mechanism of plastic deformation from single craze-cracking to homogeneous and heterogeneous intensified crazing for PHB and PHBHV matrices, respectively. Homogeneous tensile crazes formed perpendicularly to the draw direction at the initial stages of deformation, transformed into shear crazes characterized by oblique edge propagation for the PHBHV/PBAT blend. Such angled crazes suggested that the displacement might be caused by shear localized deformation. The crazes' strength and the time to failure increased with the minor phase fibers. These fibers, aligned with the tensile direction and spanning the width of the crazes, were in the order of a few micrometers in diameter depending on the concentration. The network of fibrillar PBAT provided additional integrity for larger plastic deformation values. This study elucidates the mechanism of crazing in PHA blends and provides strategies for controlling it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]