Hydrolytic Degradation of Kapton Film
Abstract
An investigation of the hydrolytic degradation of Kapton polyimide film has been conducted. Tensile properties were measured on (a) unaged material, (b) material which had been immersed in water at temperatures from 50- 100 deg. C for up to 5,000 hours, (c) material which had been stressed to 5,000 psi while being exposed to 95-100% relative humidity at 75 and 85 deg. C, and (d) material which had been repetively cycled through a combination of ultraviolet radiation and condensing humidity at 50-60 deg. C. The property degradation as a function of time was found to be best represented by an exponential decay curve for all exposure conditions. The immersion time required for the film to lose a prescribed percentage of its initial tensile properties was determined for each aging temperature, and these lifetimes were correlated with temperature using the Arrhenius relationship. Over the temperature range examined, excellent linearity was obtained. Following the same criteria as with the immersion specimen, lifetimes were determined for the stressed humidity exposures and ultraviolet-humidity cyclic exposures. Both of these exposure environments significantly accelerated the rate of degradation over that observed in the unstressed water immersions at equivalent temperatures.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1983
- Accession Number
- ADA139016
Entities
People
- D. R. Askins
Organizations
- University of Dayton