Morphology, deformation and failure behaviour of homo- and copolyimide fibres 1.: Fibres from 4,4′-oxybis(phthalic anhydride) (DPhO) and p-phenylenediamine (PPh) or/and 2,5-bis(4-aminophenyl)-pyrimidine (2,5PRM)

The morphology, deformation and failure behaviour of new high-performance polyimide (PI) fibres were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) and tensile measurements. PI fibres were prepared from rigid aromatic diamines p-phenylenediamine (PPh) and 2,5-bis(4-aminophenyl)-pyrimidine (2,5PRM) and semi-rigid 4,4'-oxybis(phthalic anhydride) (DPhO) by wet-spinning of the N,N-dimethylacetamide solutions of their precursor poly(amic acids) in coagulation bath followed by thermal imidization at 400 degrees C. The tensile properties and drawability of copolyimide (coPI) fibres were better than those of homopolyimides (homoPI). The improvement in fibre modulus and tensile strength of the coPI fibres can be explained by the microblock structure on the X-ray level and composed morphology on the macro level. Moreover, changes in the supermolecular structure and apparent fibril sizes, character of morphology, quantity of interfibrillar links, which affect the fracture mode were observed with the different composition of coPI. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.