In order to investigate the orientation mechanism during the melt spinning process of nylon 6 fibers, some properties, such as birefringence, X-ray diffraction, density, shrinkage in boiling water and longitudinal swelling, were measured for the nylon 6 filaments meltspun at various spinning speeds, ranging from 500 to 4400m/min. The following results were obtained:
1) The crystalline orientation measured by the X-ray method increases rapidly with the spinning speed in a range of relatively low spinning speeds, and it attains more than 80% of ideal orientation at the spinning speed of 2000m/min. On the contrary, the total orientation evaluated from the birefringence is much lower than the crystalline orientation.
2) The shrinkage in boiling water passes a minimum at the spinning speed around 1500-2000m/min, then gradually increases and attains an equilibrium value, with the increase of spinning speed.
3) The longitudinal swelling attains a maximum value at the spinning speed around 1500-2000m/min.
The phenomena 2) and 3) are very similar to those which have been observed on the drawing process of nylon 6 fibers, and they are thought to support an idea that in the melt spinning process as well as in the drawing process, the fiber structure becomes most unstable at the intermediate stage, corresponding to the spinning speed around 1500-2000m/min.
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