Orientation technology and commercial products from a unique roll orientation process

It is well known that orientation can produce, at a minimum, an order of magnitude improvement in physical properties of low cost plastic resins. A unique, large‐scale, commercial rolling mill process for continuous orientation of plastic sheet has been developed, A number of oriented materials have been commercially produced by this rolling mill process with a wide variety of physical properties attained. This has resulted in large volume sales of many interesting commercial products. Over the last thirty years, numerous researchers have conducted studies to evaluate the theoretical aspects of the rolling process, and the resultant properties. Most commercial oriented products are of relatively small cross sectional size such as fibers and film. The process reported herein produces heavy cross section oriented sheet. A new class of high strength thermoplastic materials is now available for design engineers to use. Long‐term strength properties are often 10 to 100 times better than with unoriented thermoplastics.