Alteration of Thermal Characteristics of Polymer for the Purpose of Creating a Two-Stage Shape Memory Polymer

Abstract:

A polymer fabricated by mixing PU soft segment and epoxy bore the thermal characteristics of the melting temperature, Tm, of PU soft segment and the glass transition temperature, Tg, of epoxy. The polymer fabricated even exhibited the shape memory effect at the Tg and Tm. Based on this observation, it was speculated that simply mixing two polymers bearing totally different thermal characteristics each other could result in a two-stage SMP, which could exhibit the shape memory effect at the two distinct temperatures. However, it was actually observed that the two-stage SMP was not always successfully created by that method. But DSC measurements revealed that such an unsuccessfully fabricated SMP still bore the thermal characteristics of its ingredient polymers. Hence, the mixing of appropriate polymers still could result in a new two-stage SMP, and the method of two-polymer-mixing must be still an effective method for creating a two-stage SMP.

• Periodical: Advanced Materials Research (Volumes 93-94)
• Pages: 304-311
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.93-94.304
• Online since: January 2010
• Authors: Hirohisa Tamagawa
• Keywords: Shape Memory Effects (SME), SMP, TG, TM, Two-Stage SMP

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