Extrudate swell behavior of glass fiber filled polyamide 6

Abstract This paper discusses the extrudate swell behavior of glass‐filled polyamide 6. The key features of the experiments were the facility to extrude directly into a density matched oil kept at extrusion temperature and thus, the ability to measure the diameter of the extrudate of the glass‐filled polyamide immediately upon exit from the die, without the extrudate contacting air and as a function of time in a chamber under isothermal and neutrally‐buoyant conditions. The concentration and orientation of the fibers of the extrudates were also studied using X‐ray radiography in a post‐mortem fashion. A skin/core morphology, where uniaxially aligned fibers constitute the skin zone and the core contains a reduced concentration of fibers, was observed.