Transition from shish-kebab to fibrillar crystals during ultra-high hot stretching of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers: In situ small and wide angle X-ray scattering studies

•UHMWPE pre-stretched fibers were examined by in situ SAXS/WAXD during the ultra-high stretching process.•We reported the transition from shish-kebab to fibrillar morphology crystals of UHMWPE fibers.•There still exist chain conformation defects even in the majorly fibrillar morphology crystals.

The ultra-high hot stretching was conducted on four-times pre-stretched ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) fibers to the ratio of about 508% to achieve the total ultra-high stretching ratio of about 2000%. In situ small and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS) measurements using synchrotron radiation and Raman spectroscopy were applied to study the structural evolutions of ultra-high stretched fibers. SAXS images revealed the transition from shish-kebab to fibrillar crystals, which is believed to involve with the increasing trans-configuration ratio of C–C backbone. WAXS results demonstrate the further stretching could still be applied to the fibers to acquire the complete extended-chain crystals.

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