Method and apparatus for determining the quality of oriented polymeric materials

A method of determining the quality of oriented polymeric materials, based on the effect of small-angle scattering, comprises the passage of a beam of monochromatic, polarized and collimated light through a given material, extracting the scattered reflections, converting them to a train of electric pulses, and determining the degree of orientation of the material using the pulse spacing. An apparatus for determining the quality of oriented polymeric materials comprises a source which produces monochromatic, polarized and collimated light passed through an oriented polymeric material, and a housing which accommodates an analyzer, a mask and a scattered reflection converting unit to convert the scattered reflections extracted by the mask to a train of electric pulses, which are arranged serially along the direction of the light beam after the material. The scattered reflection converting unit comprises a scattered light detector coupled to the recorder.