Solid state extrusion of thermoplastic elastomers 4

Abstract

A solid state extrusion technique is applied as to produce oriented block copoly-(ether ester) under various physical conditions. The morphology of the extruded samples is characterized in relation to the extrusion parameters and hard segment compositions of the polymer, using thermal analysis and X-ray methods. The lateral dimensions of the crystalline domains are found to be approximately 150/k depending on the extrusion conditions, The statistics of the long range periodicity of the structure along the extrusion direction is in agreement with a one-dimensional two phase model, the crystalline portion of which does not vary much in thickness (35 -45 ]l). The unexpected increase in the long period and the thermal shrinkage suggest the existence of strained interlamellar amorphous chains (tie molecules). The observed variations in tensile properties are interpreted under the assumption that both the number of such tie molecules and their fully extended lengths are determined by the hard segment composition and the extrusion conditions. It is also argued that the increase in the glass transition temperature is not only a function of the composition of hard segments in the amorphous phase but also of the number of strained tie molecules.

Spectroscopic characterization of the .alpha. .dblharw. .beta. crystalline phase transition in poly(butylene terephthalate) and its copolymers with poly(tetramethylene oxide)

“…The width of the hysteresis cycle is also quite sensitive to temperature as shown in Figure 9 values of the hysteresis loop widths [32 MPA (295 K), 21 MPA (320 K), 14 MPA (335 K)] are in good agreement with similar data obtained by Brereton17 from wide-angle X-ray diffraction [37 MPA (300 K), 24 MPA (330 K)]. However at higher temperatures, although the trend is similar, some discrepancy between the spectroscopic and X-ray results is evident.…”