Swelling of nylon 6 film due to water sorption

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Abstract
Dimensional changes in nylon 6 film on absorption and desorption of water were studied as functions of time and the amount of absorbed water. For absorption, a plot of film expansion versus the square root of time was sigmoidal in the initial region and did not coincide with the sorption curve: the latter was linear in the same region. This behavior is very similar to that reported for nylon 6 fiber by Kunzman. A theoretical analysis based on certain assumptions about the molecular state of nylon 6 gave good agreement with experimental results. By this analysis it was shown that the characteristic swelling behavior arises from instantaneous relaxation of the polymer molecules and is not connected with a time lag between water absorption and expansion of the polymer, as Kunzman proposed.