AbstractArticles with increased rigidity can be obtained by compression molding at high pressures as shown by experiments with five types of linear polyethylene. The materials, with weight average molecular weight ranging up to 1,000,000 were molded at pressures as high as 80,000 psi. The material temperature was 149–204°C, and the tooling was at 38°C. The duration of load was typically 3 mins, and the thickness of the molded disks was 12.7 mm. The results show that at high molding pressure the tensile modulus of the material is nearly twice that of materials molded conventionally at low pressures. This increase in modulus occurs for all the materials studied and even for a duration of load of only one min. The causes for this large increase in modulus were investigated with the help of density and melting point measurements and optical and electron microscopy. It was observed that the spherulites showed a distinctive and systematic change with the forming pressure. A hypothesis is proposed to explain the high modulus phenomenon on the basis of the kinetics of spherulite format