Behavior of Fibers in Active Media under Load—A Dynamic Gel Self-Organizing Structure

Abstract

Experimental data are presented to show that the combined action of interactive media, temperature, and load on polymeric fibers can exert not only a cumulative damaging effect, resulting in rapid fiber failure, but also under certain conditions an abnormal increase in fiber lifetime. We propose that combined molecular processes take place to create a new time-dependent dissipative structure, which we call a “dynamic gel.” The dynamic gel is characterized by nonlinear, nonequilibrium processes, as indicated by the presence of bifurcation regions. Improvements in the structure and properties of different fibers are shown. We believe that this improvement is related to self-organization, as visualized in nonequilibrium thermodynamics and synergetics.