Boosted Mechanical Properties of Polyamide 11 Tube Originated from the Hierarchical Architecture Manipulation by Helical Flow Field

Polyamide 11 (PA11) is a biobased polymer originated from the renewable plant-based resources and thus holds promising potential in reducing the consumption of limited fossil resources and protecting the environment. Compared to the commonly investigated polyolefin, the flow manipulation strategy for improving the mechanical properties of PA11 still remained a huge challenge because the strong intermolecular interactions elevated the difficulty of stretching the polar polymer chains. Herein, a helical flow was introduced in the PA11 tube extrusion by superposing a hoop flow from mandrel rotation onto an axial flow. Then, the helical flow-induced hierarchical architecture was investigated to reveal the effect of intermolecular interactions on the orientation and crystalline structure. Limited by strong hydrogen bonds between the amide groups, the PA11 chains were not stretched sufficiently to form anisotropic shish-kebab crystals but assembled into a helically aligned configuration in amorphous regions, similar to that in natural materials, endowing the as-prepared tube with enhanced hoop kink resistance and axial compression properties which were favorable to the practical application of the thin-wall tube. This study not only can provide a feasible way to tailor the mechanical properties of the PA11 tube by constructing a special multidimensional flow but also is beneficial to the fundamental understanding on the flow-induced crystallization mechanism of polar polymers with strong intermolecular interactions.