Influence of Incorporated Polydimethylsiloxane on Properties of PA66 Fiber and Its Fabric Performance

Abstract

Poly(hexamethyllene adipamide), PA66 fiber has played an important role in varied industrial applications, and its corresponding product would become more competitive if some extra value was added to PA66 fiber. In this article, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was used as an additive to prepare PA66/PDMS blend fibers through melt blend spinning carried out by a screw extruder spinning machine. When the amount of incorporated PDMS was 0.5–3 wt %, the blend melt demonstrated good spinning ability, and the PA66/PDMS blend fibers exhibited excellent mechanical property and reduced hot shrinkage. Moreover, the crystallization and melting behavior of PA66 in the blend fibers turned out to be not affected by the existence of PDMS. In addition, the contact angle of water on the blend fiber surface became larger, while the value of friction coefficient on the surface of fibers got lower with increasing PDMS content in the blend fibers. After evaluating the fabric woven by PA66/PDMS blend fibers using the KES-F KES-FB-2 fabric measuring system, it was found that as PDMS content increased, the flexural rigidity and bending hysteresis would be lower, yet elasticity rate of compression work would be higher, which explained how the fabric composed of the blend fiber performed better in terms of softness and elasticity.