Crystallization behavior of melt-spun poly(vinyl alcohol) fibers during drawing process

The crystallization behavior of melt-spun poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) fibers during hot drawing process was studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and computer controlled electronic universal testing machine. The effects of drawing temperature and drawing speed on the crystallinity and the stress induced crystallization of PVA fibers were discussed. The results showed that the crystallization process of PVA fibers during hot drawing presented three stages: initial stage, stress induced crystallization stage and slowly increasing stage. And PVA fibers with high crystallinity can be obtained by properly increasing the drawing temperature and drawing speed, especially when the drawing temperature and speed were 453 K and 100 mm/min respectively. The stress induced crystallinity of PVA fibers during drawing process was the difference between the crystallinity of PVA fibers after drawing and after only heat treatment. At the low drawing speed, i.e. 50 mm/min, due to the strong molecular movement and orientation relaxation under high temperature, the effect of stress induced crystallization weakens with the increase of drawing temperature, the ratio between stress induced crystallinity and thermal induced crystallinity changed from 8.7%:0%(393 K) to 1.7%:5% (453 K). While at the high drawing speeds, i.e. 100 mm/min and 500 mm/min, with the decrease of available orientation relaxation time, the stress induced crystallization plays an important role during the drawing process, the ratio between stress induced crystallinity and thermal induced crystallinity were 8%:2.9% and 10.2%:0.5% at 453 K respectively.