Effects of draw-down ratio and annealing treatment on structure formation in extruded strands of a thermotropic liquid crystalline copolyester

Abstract

Abstract The molecular orientation, thermal behavior, and crystal lattice structure in extruded strands of a thermotropic liquid crystalline polymer (LCP) were studied with wide-angle x-ray diffraction (WAXD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The purpose of this work is to elucidate the effects of draw-down ratio and annealing treatment on the structure development in the LCP strands. The crystal orientation function markedly increased with increasing draw-down ratio, but the increase of orientation function saturated at higher draw-down ratio. Annealing treatment below 250°C slightly increased the degree of orientation, whereas the molecular orientation was relaxed by annealing at 270°C. In addition, the thermal properties and crystal lattice structure were sensitive to the annealing treatment. The change of DSC curves with annealing temperature suggested that the initial crystalline texture of as-extruded samples was reorganized into a more ordered structure by the annealing treatment. Draw-down ratio had some effects on the thermal properties. The molecular orientation facilitated the crystallization during annealing.