Research Article
The Influence of Water and Solvent Uptake on Functional Properties of Shape-Memory Polymers
Figure 10
Development of reduced strains of (a) dry- and (b) physically (hydrolytically) aged Estane samples with 3 wt.% water during the recovery process in the 2nd cycle with different holding times (from 6 to 6000 s) after stretching up to at in a cyclic thermomechanical tensile test. Achieved shape fixity ratio of (c) dry- and (d) physically (hydrolytically) aged Estane samples with 3 wt.% water after two successive cycles. Results are the average of three similar test runs. The corresponding values are plotted as gray lines with respect to the right ordinate.
| (a) Dry Estane |
| (b) Hydrolytically aged Estane |
| (c) Rf for dry Estane |
| (d) Rf for hydrolytically aged Estane |