Physical properties of poly(vinyl alcohol) fibers prepared from wet spinning/multi-step drawing

Abstract

The preparation of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) fibers by multi-step drawing was examined. The high draw ratio was attained when the drawing just before melting point was repeated. The influences of the draw ratio on mechanical and thermal properties of the fibers were studied. We utilized the wide angle x-ray diffraction (WAXD) as a medium to observe the erystallinity and the orientation of PVA fibers to study their effects on the physical properties of the fibers. With various coagulation bath concentration, both the tenacity and Young's modulus of fibers would increase as the draw ratios increased, the elongation would decrease at the same time. The tenacity was able to reach 41.0 cN/tex with the Young's modulus being 856.2 cN/tex; also, as the draw ratios increased, both crystallinity and orientation would increase. The crystallinity was about 67.2 % and the orientation was about 86.4%.