Polymer fibers drawn to the limit

The orientational drawing of polymers is known to be terminated because of sample rupture. The limiting draw ratio λ_lim reached may be different (either large or small) depending on the polymer and the actual drawing conditions. The purpose of the present work is to identify the change of supermolecular structure of polymer fibers which results in the termination of orientational drawing. Small-and wide-angle x-ray diffraction were used to study the variation of geometrical parameters of this structure with increasing draw ratio λ. The geometrical parameters discussed are the dispersions (fluctuation) of long periods and of longitudinal sizes of crystalline as well as amorphous regions. In this study we used fibers of poly(vinyl alcohol), poly(ε-caprolactam), polyoxymethylene, and poly(4,4′-diphenyloxide) pyromellitimide. It is found that the long period dispersion of these polymers, drawn under different conditions, increases to approximately the same value for different samples drawn to the limit, this relative standard deviation δ_L of long periods being 0.30-0.40. It is also found that the crystallite size dispersion does not increase with increasing λ; the increase of λ_L is due to increasing dispersion of the amorphous region lengths. For poly(vinyl alcohol) fibers drawn to the limit under different conditions and which have different λ_lim, the relative standard deviation of the sizes of amorphous regions δ_A turned out to be about the same (ca. 0.60). The latter evidence gives grounds to suggest that the rupture of polymers under drawing is associated with reaching a high degree of amorphous region size dispersion. In those regions which are considerably below the average size there probably will appear local overstress and molecular ruptures because the relative deformation of these regions is much larger than that of the adjacent regions in the cross section of the sample.