ABSTRACT
SAMUEL HUDSON and MARIAN G. McCORD Department of Textile Engineering, Chemistry, and Science, College of Textiles, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina
I. Introduction 139
II. Materials 140
III. Filament Production 143
IV. Surface Features of the Filaments 143 A. Polypropylene 143 B. Polypropy lene-talc 144 C. Polypropy lene-wollastonite 148 D. Polypropylene-calcium carbonate 152 E. Polypropylene-titanium dioxide 155
V. Conclusion 159
Reference 160
I. INTRODUCTION Polypropylene is considered to be a material that is easy to work with because of its relatively low melting temperature and because it can be easily converted into filament form through melt spinning. Therefore, it is an ideal material to study the effects of mineral fillers on the surface properties of filaments. Polypro pylene has been utilized for a number of years as a matrix material for composites and, as such, has been combined with mineral fillers. However, there have been few attempts to create mineral-filled polypropylene or other thermoplastic fila-
ments. Currently, only Kim and White [1] have published literature concerning mineral-filled filaments, but their report focuses mostly on the orientation of the talc filler in polystyrene filaments. Research in this area has also been completed by the groups of George, Hudson, McCord, and Qiu, as well as Jack and Qiu, all at North Carolina State University.
