The stress-relaxation behavior, in water, of the root and tip ends of wool fibers with normal and abnormal thiol contents and of human hair has been studied. For both wool samples, differences in behavior are seen at all strains from 1-15% and over the temperature range 0-90°C. For human hair, the differences persist even after 170 hours of relaxation, when the process is close to completion. These changes in mechanical properties along keratin fibers are ascribed to differences in thiol content along the fibers. A thermal transition temperature occurs in all samples, and is directly related to the thiol content: the greater the thiol content the lower the transition temperature.
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