Structure-Property Relationships Between Morphological Anisotropy and Mechanical, Thermal, and Dielectric Behavior in Liquid Crystal Polymers

Abstract Liquid crystal polymers (LCPs) form a class of high-performance plastics that exhibit comparable mechanical, chemical, and electrical characteristics to engineering metals and ceramics arising from their mesoscopic ordering. The unique hierarchal LCP microstructure leads to anisotropic bulk behavior and an understanding of the development of this morphology during manufacturing, as well as the subsequent effect on polymer properties, is essential to the design of isotropic material manufacturing processes. In this investigation, the preferred orientation in injection molded LCP plaque samples was measured using wide-angle x-ray scattering (WAXS). The direction of preferred alignment was observed from the WAXS scattering patterns and the degree of orientation in the material was quantified using an anisotropy factor. In addition, the mechanical, thermal, and dielectric bulk behavior was measured with respect to the mold direction (MD) and transverse direction (TD). To investigate the effects of processing geometry on microstructural development, and the resulting macroscopic properties, plaques of three different thicknesses were analyzed. In addition, the influence of melt rheology was probed through the comparison of two different commercial LCP resins. It is shown that a strong correlation exists between material performance and both the bulk polymer texture and the individual regimes of the hierarchal structure. The effects of processing geometry and polymer rheology also demonstrate the structure-property-processing dynamics at work in injection molded LCPs.