Abstract
The authors studied macro-structure changes in drawn PE fibresinterferometrically at room temperature. The optical properties, for both thefibre skin and core, and stress- strain characteristics produced in thesefibres were measured by the application of multiple-beam Fizeau fringes usingthe transmission method. The optical and mechanical results were used tocalculate the orientation functions, the stress optical coefficient and theoptical configuration parameter. Structural parameters such as cohesive energydensity (CED), average work per chain W, work per unit volume W,the reductionin entropy ΔS caused by elongation, shrinkage stress and the dielectricconstant at infinity were also calculated. The fibre diameter was determinedusing a laser forward diffraction technique. The study shows that neworientations as well as changes in the skin and core structure occur as aresult of cold drawing under stress.