Mono-component poly(vinylidene fluoride) composites by craze structural control

Abstract

A method to generate crazes uniformly and regularly with ordered structures was developed to fabricate mono-component polymer composites that mixed regions of different high-order structures. Crazes with regular structure were generated in PVDF films. Although crazes penetrated completely in the direction of film thickness, no degradation of the tensile strength of the film was observed either in perpendicular or parallel directions. Young's moduli showed a tendency to decrease in the direction perpendicular to the crazes and the loss of energy increased significantly. Because crazes generated in PVDF films scattered the incident light beams just like blind feathers, it was possible to obtain films that were transparent from the view field perpendicular to the crazes but opaque from view angles larger than 30 degrees.