Semicrystalline polymers mechanical properties

Processes such as film extrusion, fiber spinning, injection molding, and drawing tend to impart orientation to products made from semicrystalline polymers. Mechanical, dielectric, and optical properties, to mention only three, are often strongly influenced by orientation. X-ray diffraction offers a direct approach to studying crystallite orientation because the Intensity that is diffracted into a detector placed at an appropriate position is directly proportional to the number of crystal lattice planes that are in the correct orientation for diffraction. The principles of such measurements are well described in textbooks 0,2). 

These differences on the stress-strain behavior of P7MB and PDTMB show the marked influence of the mesomorphic state on the mechanical properties of a polymer. When increasing the drawing temperatures and simultaneously decreasing the strain rate, PDTMB exhibits a behavior nearly elastomeric with relatively low modulus and high draw ratios. On the contrary, P7MB displays the mechanical behavior typical of a semicrystalline polymer. 

Aliphatic polyesters are low-melting (40-80°C) semicrystalline polymers or viscous fluids and present inferior mechanical properties. Notable exceptions are poly (a-hydroxy acid)s and poly (ft -hydroxy acid)s. 

In contrast to the mature instrumental techniques discussed above, a hitherto nonexistent class of techniques will require substantial development effort. The new instruments will be capable of measuring the thermal (e.g., glass transition temperatures for amorphous or semicrystalline polymers and melting temperatures for materials in the crystalline phase), chemical, and mechanical (e.g., viscoelastic) properties of nanoscale films in confined geometries, and their creation will require rethinking of conventional methods that are used for bulk measurements. 

They produced high performance electrets from thin polymer films metallized so as to yield high capacitance. Both electrical and mechanical properties of these transducers have been remarkable examples of how applications of science of solids, including knowledge of electron traps, conduction processes in insulators and the viscoelastic phenomena of semicrystalline polymers, can be combined.(6) Incidentally, similar ideas have been applied to optimization of the properties of particle microphones, through assemblies of perfectly microspherical polymer carbon systems. These have shown what limits of performance... 

Biercuk MJ, Llaguno MC, Radosavljevic M, Hyun JK, Johnson AT (2002). Morphological and mechanical properties of carbon-nanotube-reinforced semicrystalline and amorphous polymer composites. Appl. Phys. Lett. 80 2767-2769. 

Poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK) is an aromatic, high performance, semicrystalline polymer with extremely good thermal stability, chemical resistance, and electrical and mechanical properties. This polymer shows little solubility in organic solvents due to the crystallinity. One of the first ways to characterize PEEK was by sulfonating the polymer. By adding sulfonic acid groups to the backbone, the crystallinity decreased and solubility increased.Commercially available Victrex appears to be one of the more interesting poly(arylene ether) s used for postmodification. 

The phenomenological ordering of polymers projected for use as constructing materials is not an easy matter. Sometimes the temperature stability is used as a criterion, i.e., the temperature up to which the mechanical properties remain more or less constant. Another attempt for classification, uses the E modulus or the shape of the curve of stress-strain measurements (see Sect. 2.3.5.1). In general one can say that semicrystalline thermoplastics are stiff, tough, and impact-resistant while amorphous thermoplastics tend to be brittle. Their E... 

PE-PEP diblock were similar to each other at high PE content (50-90%). This was because the mechanical properties were determined predominantly by the behaviour of the more continuous PE phase. For lower PE contents (7-29%) there were major differences in the mechanical properties of polymers with different architectures, all of which formed a cubic-packed sphere phase. PE-PEP-PE triblocks were found to be thermoplastic elastomers, whereas PEP-PE-PEP triblocks behaved like particulate filled rubber.The difference was proposed to result from bridging of PE domains across spheres in PE-PEP-PE triblocks, which acted as physical cross-links due to anchorage of the PE blocks in the semicrystalline domains. No such arrangement is possible for the PEP-PE-PEP or PE-PEP copolymers (Mohajer et al. 1982). 

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