Oriented and thermal crystallization of poly(ethylene terephthalate)

The oriented and thermal crystallization of amorphous poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) films was investigated in terms of the morphological aspects. When the amorphous PET films were stretched up to the desired draw ratios in a hot water bath at 62, 72, and 80 °C, the birefringence of the specimens increased with increasing draw ratio (λ). This tendency becomes most significant when the specimen was drawn in the bath at 62 °C. The storage modulus of the specimen drawn at 62 °C was higher than those of the specimens drawn at 72 and 80 °C. The exothermic peak in the DSC curves was observed clearly for the specimen drawn up to λ=4 in the hot water bath at 80 °C, while the peak did not appear for the specimen drawn up to λ=4 at 62 °C. Under an H_v polarization condition, light scattering patterns from the specimens drawn in the hot water bath showed four lobes at small azimuthal angles and four sharp streaks at large azimuthal angles. Such a profile was independent of the drawing temperatures from 62 to 80 °C. Based on the observed H_v patterns, a model was proposed by assuming the existence of a row-nucleated sheaf-like structure whose rows were preferentially oriented at a particular angle with respect to the stretching direction. The patterns calculated by using the above model were rather close to the patterns observed. This agreement implies that row-nucleated sheaf-like texture arises with lamellar overgrowth.