Experimental analysis on the coupled effect between thermo-optical properties and microstructure of semi-crystalline thermoplastics

Radiation heat transfer is the most common method used in thermoforming processes of thermoplastic polymers due to their poor thermal conductivity. Considering the fact that the thermo-optical characteristics of polymers play a major role in the efficiency of radiative heat transfer in bulk polymers, microstructure of semi-crystalline thermoplastics is one of the key factors to understand this heat transfer phenomenon in depth. In this study, a relation between the microcrystalline structure of polyolefin (PO) and its effect on the thermo-optical properties was experimentally analyzed. Information on the microcrystalline structure of the samples was obtained by determining the degree of crystallinity (Xc) thanks to Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). Using Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy and integrating sphere, optical characteristics of the PO samples were analyzed considering two spectrums that are in near-infrared (NIR) and middle-infrared (MIR) spectral regions respectively. The a...