The project deals with the study of biaxial stretching of ultra- high molecular weight polyolefin gel films, especially UHMWPE and UHMWPP. Uniaxially drawn UHMWPE gels have shown ultra-high strength comparable to its counterparts such as steel or KevlarR fibers. However, such uniaxially driven fibers are inherently weak in transverse direction due to fibrillation. The lateral strength may be significantly improved by introducing biaxial orientation in the gels. The PI will perform cross-rolling of UHMWPE gels prior to biaxial stretching to limit significant reduction of sample thickness during biaxial stretching. Another area that will be addressed is to study the mechanisms of gel drawing by probing labelled molecules. A third area that will be addressed is a study of melting and crystallization behavior of UHMWPE gels and the deformation mechanisms of gel spherulites by conventional time-resolved light scattering, SAXS, WAXD and optical microscopy.
