In this chapter we describe synthetic polymeric fibers, which saw tremendous advancement in the last half of the twentieth century. In fact, a reasonable case can be made that the so-called age of fibers began with the advent of synthetic fibers such as nylon, polyester, etc. in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Many companies such as Du Pont, Monsanto, BASF, Hoechst, ICI, etc. contributed significantly in this area. For a historical account of the scientific and technological progress made in this area, the reader is referred to a study of research and development activities at Du Pont during the period 1902–1980 (Hounshell and Smith, 1988). Most of these synthetic polymeric fibers such as polyester, nylon, etc. have very uniform and reproducible properties. They, however, have a rather low elastic modulus, which restricts them mostly to the apparel or textile market. It was the research work aimed at making strong and stiff synthetic polymeric fibers for use as reinforcements in polymers, which started sometime in the late 1950s and early 1960s, that resulted in the commercial availability of strong and stiff fibers such as aramid and extended-chain polyethylene. We describe below the processing, structure, and properties of some important synthetic polymeric fibers in some detail.

Brief history of organic fibers

A brief historical review of the work in the area of organic fibers will be helpful in placing things in perspective.