Development of stress‐crystallized morphology during melt‐spinning of polypropylene fibers

Melt‐spinning of isotactic polypropylene was performed in an effort to assess how the flow field that exists within a filament affects final as‐spun fiber morphology. It was concluded that the molten filament deforms chiefly by elongational flow, with some small amount of shearing flow bearing localized near the filament periphery. The resulting crystal texture is mostly comprised of lamellae oriented perpendicular (chain direction parallel) to the fiber axis, but a minority population of crystallites whose orientation is orthogonal (chain direction perpendicular) to the primary population is also present in these fibers. Post‐drawing steps initially cause crystallites to rotate toward the axial direction, while the chains within them undergo intralamellar slip and become better oriented parallel to the fiber axis. At larger extensions, lamellar crystallites are pulled into microfibrillar units.