Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

12-2009

Abstract

The variation of both the tensile properties and thermal properties of aligned electrospun fibers with the take-up velocity (TUV) of disc collector has not been widely investigated due to the difficulty of handling aligned nanofibers and measuring low loads. In this thesis, 25% of nylon 6 was dissolved in formic acid and then electrospun into fibers and the fibers were aligned using a rotating disc collector. We evaluated the tensile and thermal properties, average fiber diameter, crystallinity, crystalline morphology, molecular and crystalline orientation of aligned electrospun nylon 6 nanofibers as a function of TUV based on a disc collector. It was determined that by increasing the TUV from 14.2 m/s to 21.4 m/s, the tensile modulus and strength increased by 32% and 19% respectively while the elongation at break decreased by 44%. At the same time, the percentage of crystallinity, molecular and crystalline orientation increased by 21%, 11%, and 6% respectively while the average fiber diameter decreased by 40%. Meanwhile, the melting temperature and glass transition temperature of the fibers remained constant with increase of TUV.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.