Polymer crystallization in complex conditions. Towards more realistic modelling of industrial processes

Abstract

Crystallization plays an important role in processing many industrial polymers. Crystallinity controls mechanical and sorptional properties of solid materials and strongly affects rheological properties of polymer melts and solutions. Therefore, realistic modeling of technological processes involving crystallizable polymers (melt spinning, film blowing, injection molding, etc.) requires that crystallization in the course of processing is taken into account. In contrast to idealized laboratory conditions usually applied in academic studies, crystallization in processing conditions covers wide range of rapidly changing temperatures and pressures. Simple models of non-isothermal, and stress-induced crystallization kinetics are discussed. Consideration of crystallization in the computer model of melt spinning reveals new effects, absent in earlier models, in which crystallization was ignored.