Monte Carlo Simulation of Stress-Induced Polymer Crystallization during Cold Drawing*

Jiping Wang, Yihuan Yu, Wenbing Hu*

Polymers are stretched with stress relaxation in the common industrial processing such as fiber spinning, plastic molding, film stretching and film blowing. Recently we develop a new simulation method which could reproduce the typical stress relaxation behaviors of polymers. Based on this model we investigated polymer crystallization during the drawing process from high to low temperatures. The high temperature results reproduced our previous observations on strain-induced polymer crystallization [1-3]. Since we took the conformational energy barrier and the monomer adhesive barrier into consideration, the low temperature results revealed the stress-induced fragmentation in company with crystallization. This work could help us to understand the semi-crystalline structures in the cold drawing process of polymer materials.

References:
[1] Nie, YJ.; Gao, HH.; Yu, MH.; Hu, ZM.; Reiter, G.; Hu, WB. Polymer. 2013, 54: 3402-3407.
[2] Nie, YJ.; Gao, HH.; Wu, YX.; Hu, WB. Soft Matter. 2014, 10: 343-347.
[3] Nie, YJ.; Gao, HH.; Hu, WB. Polymer. 2014, 55: 1267-1272.

Keywords:
Crystallization, Polymer Processing, Monte Carlo Simulation, Cold Drawing