Shear‐Induced orientation in liquid crystalline polymers

Abstract The orientation development characteristics in shear flow of wholly aromatic thermotropic liquid crystalline polymers were studied. Based on the analysis of shear flow in a capillary followed by elongational flow, an experimental setup has been proposed to determine the shear‐induced orientation. Experimental results have indicated that shear‐induced orientation depends on total shear strain. However, orientation enhancement due to shear flow is much less effective compared with orientation buildup in the case of elongational flow. Thermotropic liquid crystalline polymers that exhibited higher orientability in elongational flow exhibited also higher orientability in shear flow. Finally, to obtain high, shear orientation in processing of thermotropics, special care should be exercised in the design of dies and molds and in optimizing processing conditions, so that high shear rates and/or long shearing times should prevail.