Stress induced reversible crystal transition in polymers

This minireview introduces the state of the art in the stress induced reversible crystal transition phenomenon frequently found in polyethers and polyesters. This type of crystal transition is thermodynamically a first order phase transition. Microscopically, it generally corresponds to a change from gauche conformers to trans conformers under external stress, which leads to longer repeating length per monomeric unit along polymer chains. The dimension of the lamellar structure is influenced by the crystal transition as well. The crystal lattice parameters, chain conformation, critical stress and the energy barrier for crystal transition in different polymers are summarized. The mechanical property features imparted by the reversible crystal transition are briefly introduced. (c) 2015 Society of Chemical Industry