Most things expand when they heat up and contract when cooled, which is why we do things like leave gaps concrete sidewalks for expansion and run a lid you can’t open under hot tap water to loosen it.
My general understanding is higher energy = more molecules moving around and bumping into each other and causing expansion, and removing energy/ heat results in the opposite. I know there are some exceptions like water which expands when frozen since the molecules line up in an orderly(ish) crystalline formation when frozen, so is something similar happening to plastic, except without actually requiring a state change?
In: Chemistry
Plastics are created in such a way that they exist in a relatively unfavorable configuration, long polymer chains oriented nicely by rapid cooling, the heat disrupts this nice orientation.
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