Study of the effect of annealing and physical aging on PVC by the thermally stimulated currents methods

The thermally stimulated currents technique has been used to determine different relaxation and transition modes in polyvinyl chloride (PVC). The influence of thermal annealing has also been studied. For each temperature of annealing, the activation enthalpy and the relaxation times were evaluated and calculated. A compensation phenomenon was observed. Empirical formulas that relate the temperature of compensation to the crystallinity rate of the material were introduced. Furthermore, the influence of physical aging on the mode of relaxation located in the vicinity of the glass transition was investigated.