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Mechanical behavior of polyamide-6 after combined photo-oxidative and hygrothermal aging
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Researchers aged polyamide-6 under UV radiation alone and under alternating UV and high-humidity conditions, finding that added moisture did not worsen ductility or strength loss—a result that contrasts with prior thermal-oxidation studies and clarifies how photo-oxidation of this common plastic proceeds under real-world environmental conditions.
The effect of moisture on the photo-oxidative degradation of polyamide-6 (PA-6) was studied by analyzing the mechanical response after two different accelerated aging procedures. In the first aging procedure, the PA-6 was only exposed to ultra-violet (UV) radiation at 60 $$^\circ$$ C. In the second procedure, the same duration of UV radiation was periodically interrupted while the relative humidity was raised to 100%. Diffusion-limited and nominally homogeneous degradation conditions were investigated using bulk and film specimens, respectively. Accelerated UV aging reduced the ductility of PA-6, but the additional hygrothermal exposure had no effect on the ductility or strength, indicating that humidity did not influence the photo-oxidation of PA-6. This finding contrasts with previous studies that found thermo-oxidation of PA-6 was accelerated by moisture.
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