Morphologies of isothermal crystallized pure poly and fiber-reinforced poly composites

The morphologies of pure poly (phenylene sulfide) (PPS) and glass, carbon, aramid fiber-reinforced poly (phenylene sulfide) composites crystallized isothermally from the melt were investigated by a polarized light microscope equipped with a hot-stage in real time. The spherulite growth rates of PPS were measured in the range of crystallization temperature from 235℃ to 265℃ as a function of crystallization time. The results show that the crystal growth rate decreases as the isothermal crystallization temperature increases, and the crystalline morphology of pure PPS varies from fine spherulite with sheaflike structure in part to bigger and perfect spherulite and then to fine and imperfect spherulite. The presence of fibers plays an important role in the morphologies of PPS which transformed from spherulite structure to the transcrystallization. And to what degree the transcrystallization induced depends on the kinds of the fibers. Among these fibers, glass fibers and aramid fibers possess the ability for inducing the transcrystallization of PPS while carbon fibers can not induce PPS to form the transcrystallization obviously.