ISSN:
0032-3888
Keywords:
Chemistry
;
Chemical Engineering
Source:
Wiley InterScience Backfile Collection 1832-2000
Topics:
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Production Engineering, Mining and Metallurgy, Traffic Engineering, Precision Mechanics
,
Physics
Notes:
Isothermal melt-spinning of two thermotropic liquid crystalline polymers (TLCPs), a wholly aromatic copolyester KU-9211 (also named K161 from Bayer AG) and an aliphatic containing TLCP, PET/PHB60 (Tennessee Eastman), was studied to analyze the effect of processing conditions on fiber properties. Fibers were melt-spun from a capillary rheometer equipped with an isothermal chamber in which cross-flowed air was used as the cooling medium. The processing variables studied included the extrusion temperature, the extrusion rate, the cooling conditions, and the draw ratio. As-spun fibers were characterized by measuring storage moduli and molecular orientation parameters as a function of draw ratio under various processing conditions. Among the processing variables studied, the draw ratio was the primary factor in determining both the fiber modulus and the molecular orientation. The extrusion rate did not appear to affect the fiber properties within the range studied. The properties of K161 fibers were also dependent on the extrusion and cooling temperatures, while PET/PHB60 fibers were rather insensitive to the processing temperatures within data scatter and temperatures studied. A composite model based on a rigid-rod rotation mechanism and the deformation of nematic domains in an elongational flow field was used to model the experimental results and was compared with other theories available. Conformance of data to the composite model was obtained by use of a single temperature dependent parameter n, suggesting that the rigid-rod rotation mechanism could be used to predict the orientation development of TLCPs. The Halpin-Tsai equations and the orthotropic equation for angular dependence were used to describe the elastic properties of the TLCP fibers.
Additional Material:
17 Ill.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pen.760330306
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