Experimental verification of yield strength of polymeric line contact structures

Polymeric line contact structures are increasingly being used in engineering applications, so that the determination of the yield strength of the structures is of great importance. However, experimental investigation has shown that the current prediction of the yield strength in engineering provides conservative results relative to the actual yield behaviour of the structures. In the present study, a more accurate assessment for the yield strength of a line contact structure is proposed and, more importantly, this assessment was verified by a series of specially designed line contact tests based on optical full-field measurements. Specifically, the validity of this proposed assessment was examined by loading and unloading a polymeric line contact structure at different loading levels, and its accuracy was validated by singly loading line contact structures made from different polymeric materials until the occurrence of significant global plastic deformation. The experimental results confirmed that this proposed yield strength assessment enables accurate determination of the yield behaviour of line contact structures.