Structure and Deformation

The basic structural elements of high polymer solids are the chain molecules. The large variety of their chemical structures and their flexibility permit widely different modes of organization and mechanical interaction, thus giving rise to a variety of deformation mechanisms and fracture patterns. At this point the characteristic elements of structure and superstructure of amorphous and semicrystalline polymers will be introduced. The interrelations between chain parameters (structure and regularity), crystal or superstructural parameters (degree of crystallinity, lattice structure, nucleation, growth kinetics, and defects of crystals), and external parameters are extensively discussed in the literature and are not the principal object of this book [see Ref. 1–3, 107, for an introduction and for further references].