Research in local fracture processes and micro-machining of polymers and polymer-based composites has attracted increasing attention, in development of composite materials and miniaturisation of polymer components. In this thesis, sectioning (machining) of a glassy polymer and a carbon nanotube based composite at the nanoscale was performed by an instrumented ultramicrotome. The yield stresses and fracture toughness of these materials were determined by analysing the sectioning forces. Fractographic analysis by atomic force microscopy was conducted to characterise the topographies and elastic properties of the sectioned surfaces to explore the deformation and fracture behaviour of the polymer during nanosectioning. The study reveals that a transition from homogenous to shear localised deformation occurred as the uncut chip thickness (depth of cut) or sectioning speed increased to a critical value. Analytical and finite element methods were used to model the nanosectioning process. The shear localised deformation was caused by thermal softening due to plastic dissipation. Although not considering sectioning, the tensile properties of a polymer nanocomposite were additionally investigated, where the degree of nanofibrillation and polyethylene glycol (PEG) content had significant effects.

This thesis discusses how bending of Armox 500T and Armox 440T affects the ballistic properties; it also discusses the bending performance of Armox 500T and Armox 440T. The purpose is to develop new bending recommendations, and to investigate the correlation between bending radius and maintaining ballistic performance and offer more reliable bending recommendations to the Armox customers. The new bending recommendations will satisfy both mechanical and ballistic performance. To achieve the purpose, bending tests was made, and then the bended specimens were used to investigate the deformation from the bending. The method hardness mapping was used to describe the deformation in the specimen, because of the lack of information of deformation mechanism in martensitic steels. To test the ballistic properties, V50-tests were made on bended specimens at Åkers Krutbruk Protection AB. The V50-value is the calculated average value from six rounds, with three stops and three penetrations in a span of 40 m/s. The result from the testing shows that the bending does not have any significantly effect on the ballistic properties on the tested combinations of materials and ammunitions.   The conclusions from the testing results are that the bending does not significantly influence the ballistic properties for the tested materials and ammunitions and the bending recommendations were greatly improved.