Novel Polyethylene Fibers of Very High Thermal Conductivity Enabled by Amorphous Restructuring.

ABSTRACT: High-thermal-conductivity polymers are very sought after for applications in various thermal management systems. Although improving crystallinity is a common way for increasing the thermal conductivity (k) of polymers, it has very limited capacity when the crystallinity is already high. In this work, by heat-stretching a highly crystalline microfiber, a significant k enhancement is observed. More interestingly, it coincides with a reduction in crystallinity. The sample is a Spectra S-900 ultrahigh-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMW-PE) microfiber of 92% crystallinity and high degree of orientation. The optimum stretching condition is 131.5 °C, with a strain rate of 0.0129 s^-1 to a low strain ratio (∼6.6) followed by air quenching. The k enhancement is from

SUBMITTER: Zhu B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6641735 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature