MONO-COMPONENT POLY(VINYLIDENE FLUORIDE) COMPOSITES BY CRAZE STRUCTURAL CONTROL

A method to generate crazes uniformly and regularly with ordered struc tures was developed to fabricate mono-component polymer composites tha t mixed regions of different high-order structures. Crazes with regula r structure were generated in PVDF films. Although crazes penetrated c ompletely in the direction of film thickness, no degradation of the te nsile strength of the film was observed wither in perpendicular or par allel directions. Young's moduli showed a tendency to decrease in the direction perpendicular to the crazes and the loss of energy increased significantly. Because crazes generated in PVDF films scattered the i ncident light beams just like blind feathers, it was possible to obtai n films that were transparent from the view field perpendicular to the crazes but opaque from view angles larger than 30 degrees.