the abrasion resistance is quantified by the number of cycles it takes for the strand to fail the average number of cycles to break for the monofilaments 12 formed from the pa ppe mixture was found to range between 16900 and 22700 table 1 in contrast the comparative monofilament having a ppe loading of 0 processed under similar conditions had an average number of cycles to break of 10000 hence the abrasion resistance is increased by more than 1 65 times with the addition of ppe increasing the ppe loading above 30 resulted in a phase separation of the components and in unacceptable monofilaments to determine the free shrinkage the samples were kept in an enclosed hot air oven at 177 u00b0 c for 3 minutes in an unrestrained condition after this hot air treatment the change in the length of each sample was measured and the free shrinkage percentage was calculated therefrom apart from the abrasion resistance and the free shrinkage table 1 shows further tensile properties of the monofilament samples according to the present invention as well as of the comparative monofilament thermal stability of the monofilaments was evaluated by exposing the monofilaments to high temperatures and measuring the tensile properties before and after the heat treatment specifically the samples were exposed to 170 u00b0 c for 24 hours in an enclosed hot air oven and retained tensile strength of the monofilaments was expressed in percentage after the heat treatment the water absorption.