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Photoinitiated crosslinking of low density polyethylene. V: Orientation in stretched samples
Author(s) -
Qing Yan,
Rånby Bengt
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
polymer engineering and science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.503
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1548-2634
pISSN - 0032-3888
DOI - 10.1002/pen.760321906
Subject(s) - materials science , low density polyethylene , differential scanning calorimetry , composite material , ultimate tensile strength , melting point , polyethylene , shrinkage , annealing (glass) , melting temperature , elongation , thermodynamics , physics
Abstract Low density polyethylene (LDPE) is extruded, stretched, and photocrosslinked at different temperatures with different stretch rations in a continuous production line. Three different sequences are adopted: crosslinking before drawing, crosslinking after drawing, and crosslinking during drawing. The effect of drawing is studied by measuring the tensile properties. The increase of tensile strength and the decrease of elongation at break after stretching are related to chain orientation in crystalline morphology measured by X‐ray diffraction. Thermal analysis by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) supports these results. Owing to chain relaxation, the effects of orientation by stretching are significant only when the samples are drawn at a temperature not much higher than the melting point. Annealing of the drawn samples at a temperature above the melting point shows that the orientation in a crosslinked sample is retained for a much longer time than in an uncrosslinked sample. For the crosslinked samples, it is found that crosslinking after or during drawing gives a material with lower shrinkage upon heating; however, crosslinking before drawing gives a heat‐shrinkable material.