Property Transformation of Thermotropic Liquid Crystals Polymers

The advent of commercially available thermotropic liquid crystals polymers has led to novel uses of these plastics in the astronautics community. During the course of research, a fundamental property, termed polymers annealing, was empirically discovered, whereby thermal and chemical resistance of certain thermotropes are increased dramatically by a defined heat cycle after molding. A fundamental study of this annealing phenomenon has shown it to be a function of both rigid rod location and intermolecular forces. X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy results are shown to help in understanding the complex structure and surface morphology.