Design of Spinning and Subsequent Drawing Parameters to Improve the Mechanical Properties of PVA Fibers

In this study, efforts were made to enhance the mechanical properties of the poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) fibers of medium molecular weight(number-average degree of polymerization=1735) varying the ratio in $DMSO/H_2O$ mixed solvent and spinning/drawing conditions. The gel fibers prepared from pure DMSO were opaquely frozen in the coagulating bath of $-20^{\circ}C$. However, transparent gel fibers were formed without freezing for the mixture to contain water less than 80wt%. As the amount of water in the mixture increased the residual solvent in the coagulated gel fibers decreased ranging from 85 to 42wt%. The complex viscosity increased with increasing PVA concentration in 80/20 $DMSO/H_2O$ exhibiting remarkable shear thinning at 18wt%. In the Cole-Cole plot, the 18wt% PVA solutions gave a deviated curve from 12 and 15wt% ones. Thus the optimum PVA concentration for the spinning processing of medium MW PVA solutions in 80/20 $DMSO/H_2O$ was determined to 18wt% with rheological concept. Low degree of drawing during hot drawing process in the dry state was available for high bath draft in the coagulation bath. The most improved mechanical properties were observed by applying the highest possible draw ratio attained by reducing bath draft over multi-step drawing process. In the given bath draft, linear relationship was observed between both tensile strength and modulus and draw ratio showing the inflection points at the draw ratio of 19.5 and 18.0 for tensile strength and modulus, respectively.