Characterization of commercial polybutylenes. part II. Crystallinity and tensile properties

Abstract

A series of previously characterized polybutylenes were compression molded using various cooling conditions. Crystallinity decreased as cooling rate increased. The samples exhibited three types of tensile behavior. The crystallinity of samples containing around 5% ethylene was about 40%. These behaved as elastomers, exhibiting typical entropic elasticity. For the remaining samples, crystallinities between 55% and 70% were observed, depending on grade, and more particularly on cooling conditions. For these, lower crystallinity levels favor sample necking and stress-induced orientation, producing high elongation at break and high tensile strength values, while the higher crystallinity samples show high moduli and elasticity values coupled with uniform deformation. In the former case, significant crystalline deformation—causing alignment of the c axes of the crystallites towards the stretching direction, and thereby reinforcing the sample—is responsible for the high elongations and tensile strength encountered. In the higher-crystallinity case much of the deformation is taken up by interlamellar void generation, with little or no c-axis alignment, this elastic mechanism having been termed “hard elasticity.”