Melt spinning of high-impact polystyrene: Rubber morphology variations,orientation development,and mechanical properties

Studies of melt-spun, high-impact polystyrene filaments indicate that rubber globules are fragmented to smaller sizes with increasing drawdown ratio and spinline stress. The melt-spun fibers are highly birefringent and obey the same relationship between birefringence and stress as pure polystyrene despite the presence of the rubber globules. These results are interpreted in terms of the stress distribution across the filament cross section. Room temperature tensil force–elongation curves were obtained on the filaments, and mechanical property phenomena were interpreted in terms of the above morphology changes and orientation of polystyrene chains.