Claims
- 1. A composite plastic article comprising a tough, flexible substrate, one face of which bears a microstructure of utilitarian discontinuites, which discontinuities have a depth of at least 0.025 mm to about 0.5 mm, said microstructure comprising a layer of a cured oligomeric resin having hard segments and soft segments, wherein the total thickness of the layer of cured resin is not more than 20% greater than the depth of the discontinuities.
- 2. A composite plastic article as defined in claim 1, wherein the substrate comprises a tough, flexible, transparent, thermoplastic film.
- 3. A composite plastic article as defined in claim 2, the substrate of which is a flexible polycarbonate film.
- 4. A composite plastic article as defined in claim 2, wherein said microstructure makes the composite plastic article a total internal reflecting film.
- 5. A composite plastic article as defined in claim 4, and formed into a light pipe having a diameter of less than 7.5 cm.
- 6. A composite plastic article as defined in claim 1 wherein said utilitarian discontinuities comprise optically utilitarian discontinuities.
- 7. A composite plastic article as defined in claim 1 wherein each surface of said flexible substrate bears a microstructure of said utilitarian discontinuites.
- 8. A composite plastic article according to claim 1 wherein said cured oligomeric resin has an experimentally determined thermal expansion coefficient that is from 1.33 to 6 times greater than the experimentally determined thermal expansion coefficient of said flexible substrate.
- 9. A composite article according to claim 8 wherein the experimentally determined thermal expansion coefficient or said flexible substrate is in the range of 0.3.times.10.sup.-4 mm/mm/.degree.C. to 1.5.times.10.sup.-4 mm/mm/.degree.C. and said cured oligomeric resin has an experimentally determined thermal expansion coefficient in the range of 2.times.10.sup.-4 mm/mm/.degree.C. to 3.times.10.sup.-4 mm/mm/.degree.C.
- 10. A composite article according to claim 9 wherein one of the hard and soft segments of said cured oligomeric resin has a Tg below room temperature and said flexible substrate has a Tg above room temperature.
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This is a continuation-in-part of copending application Ser. No. 309,415 filed Feb. 10, 1989, now abandoned.
US Referenced Citations (6)
Non-Patent Literature Citations (1)
Entry |
SPIE Proceedings, vol. 692 p. 235 (1986). |
Continuation in Parts (1)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
309415 |
Feb 1989 |
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