POLY(ETHYLENE-TEREPHTHALATE) NUCLEATION AS STUDIED BY SHRINKAGE OF FILM OF LOW ORIENTATION LEVEL

Poly(ethylene terephthalate)s of weight average MW 74,000 and 30,000 have been uniaxially stretched, cooled under restraint, reheated, and shrunk unrestrained. Five stretch temperatures between 80 and 120°C and elongations up to 280 percent have been employed. Density and wide‐angle X‐ray diffraction results indicate conventional crystallization to have occurred only for the highly oriented samples, e.g., stretching above 200 percent at 90°C. The majority of stretching conditions studied produced only nucleated polymer. A sensitive, qualitative measure of nucleation is the degree of stretch imposed. Sufficiently high stretch temperature and low stretch rate lead to negligible nuclei formation. Nucleation in stretched, unshrunk films correlates with relatively high shrinkage, low orientation, low density and the absence of crystallinity until after the film has been shrunk. Crystallization on the other hand correlates with relatively high density, relatively low shrinkage and high orientation. Copyright © 1979 Society of Plastics Engineers, Inc.