1. Stress-induced microphase separation of interlamellar amorphous phase in hard-elastic isotactic polypropylene film.
- Author
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Lin, Yuanfei, Li, Xueyu, Meng, Lingpu, Chen, Xiaowei, Lv, Fei, Zhang, Qianlei, and Li, Liangbin
- Subjects
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POLYPROPYLENE films , *POLYMERIC composites , *SYNCHROTRON radiation , *ISOTACTIC polymers , *X-ray scattering - Abstract
Lamellar stacks, arranged alternatively with hard crystal and soft amorphous nano-layers, are the basic building units to determine the intrinsic mechanical properties of semi-crystalline polymeric materials. The mechanical instability of hard-elastic isotactic polypropylene (iPP) films with highly parallel lamellar stacks is studied with in-situ synchrotron radiation small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS) techniques during cyclic tensile deformation. Unexpectedly, the micro-strain, deduced from the relative variation of lamellar periodicity, shows an accelerated increase at the onset of instability and reaches values larger than the corresponding macro-strain after yield, during which no irreversible plastic destruction of crystal is observed. Combining the unpredictable increase of long period and other structural information obtained with in-situ SAXS/WAXS measurements, we propose that stress-induced microphase separation of interlamellar amorphous phase is responsible for the yield behavior and the hyperelasticity of hard-elastic iPP films, which stems from the heterogeneous distribution of tie chain/trapped entanglement in interlamellar amorphous nano-layers. This reversible stress-induced non-equilibrium phase transition of interlamellar amorphous phase is different from current plastic deformation models with crystal destruction in semi-crystalline polymers but in line with the nearly 100% elastic recovery ratio of hard-elastic films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2018
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