Structure of heat‐treated nylon 6 fibers. I. Application of the arrhenius equation

The changes in lateral order, crystalline perfection index, crystallinity percentage, long period, and shrinkage denote the structural modification due to thermal effects in the heat‐treated nylon 6 fibers. The application of the Arrhenius equation to these parameters resulted in two types of behavior: the parameters long period and shrinkage showed linearity in the temperature range of 100–190°C, while the others presented linearity between 150 and 190°C. The first reflects the direct dependence of crystal growth on shrinkage and the latter shows that the necessary energy to promote significant crystal growth and perfection will be reached only at 150°C. In the range of temperature from 100 to 150°C the observed increase of crystallinity is associated to chain flexibility allowing rearrangement as well as new crystal formation. This phenomenon seems to be related to the discontinuity observed in the Arrhenius plots in the same range of temperature.