Mechanical anisotropy of regenerated cellulose films in relation to orientations of crystalline and noncrystalline phases

The mechanical anisotropy of regenerated cellulose films is investigated, first, on the basis of the theory of infinitesimal elasticity. Fairly good agreement of calculated with observed results is obtained on the basis of orthogonal anisotropy with respect to the machine direction and the transverse and thickness directions of the films. The shear modulus G₂₃ along the film plane and the Poisson ratio v₃₂ are 1.5 times; 10² kg/mm² and about 0.4, respectively, in the standard dry state. Second, the mechanical anisotropy in three different dry states is analyzed in terms of the degree of biaxial orientation of two kinds of structural units, cellulose II crystallites and noncrystalline chain segments, and their mechanical anisotropy. The calculation for averaging the mechanical anisotropies of these structural units on the basis of the homogeneous strain hypothesis gives results much higher than the experimental data, whereas the calculation on the basis on the homogeneous stress hypothesis gives results rather lower than experiment. As a modification of the two extreme calculations, a different averaging gives considerably better agreement between the calculated and observed results. The mechanical anisotropy in the wet state is further analyzed primarily in terms of the degree of biaxial orientation of noncrystalline chains by a modification of Krigbaum treatment, based on application of the kinetic theory of entropy elasticity for semicrystalline polymers, to anisotropic systems. The calculation gives results, however, much lower than those obtained experimentally, unless the ratio of the end-to-end distance of the noncrystalline chain to its fully stretched length is taken as unusually large. This may be due to underestimation of the contribution of the crystalline phase to terms of the same type as appear in the Krigbaum treatment.