Polyethylene Fiber Drawing Optimization

Polymer fiber drawing creates fibers with enhanced thermal conductivity and strength compared to bulk polymer because drawing aligns the molecular chains. I optimize the polymer fiber drawing method in order to achieve polymer fibers that are drawn to lengths exceeding 1cm and develop a method to cut and store them for future experimental purposes. With lengths exceeding 1cm, starting with lengths near 0.5mm, these fibers undergo very large tensile deformations. This ensures the fibers obtained have been ultra drawn, and the polymer chains have aligned, thus enhancing the tensile strength and thermal conductivity of the fiber. By storing these fibers, I can perform experimental measurements in the future to obtain thermal conductivity values for polyethylene fibers and notice the effect of aligning the molecular chains. Thesis Supervisor: Gang Chen Title: Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering of Mechanical Engineering