Effect of Strain on Thermodynamic Melting Temperature of Polymers

Abstract

Abstract X-ray diffraction, sonic velocity, and birefringence measurements were used to study the variation of the apparent melting point of strained natural rubber and polychloroprene vulcanizates with elongation ratio and crystallization temperature. The procedure of Hoffman and Weeks was employed to obtain the thermodynamic melting point, tm, for each elongation ratio α. The parameter β relating to the distribution of fold lengths is unusually large for low elongation ratios and decreases into the usual range only at higher elongations. Observed variations of tm with α for these two polymers are compared with the theoretical predictions of Flory and Roe and Krigbaum. Although the predictions of the Flory theory depend somewhat upon the value assigned for the number of repeating units per statistical link, and this parameter is not well known for polychloroprene, we nevertheless conclude that his treatment offers a better representation of the melting point elevation for high elongations. Due to the approximations introduced, the treatment of Flory is not valid for lower elongations. Any attempt to improve this treatment must begin by specifying the free energy of the semicrystalline system, which implies a knowledge of the distribution of crystallite orientations and how this distribution varies with strain and with the crystallization conditions.