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Title: Microstructure and thermomechanical properties relationship of segmented thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU)

Journal Article · · AIP Conference Proceedings
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4873835· OSTI ID:22270985
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  1. Institute of Polymer Science and Processing (iPSP), HTW Aalen (Germany)

Thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU) are important polymeric materials for seals. In competition with Acrylonitrile butadiene rubbers (NBR), TPU exhibits higher strength and a considerable better abrasion resistance. The advantage of NBR over TPU is a smaller compression set but however TPU excels in its much shorter processing cycle times. Generally a TPU is a block copolymer composed of hard and soft segments, which plays an important role in determining the material properties. TPU can be processed either to ready moulded parts or can be incorporated by multi component moulding, in both cases it shows decent mechanical properties. In the present work, the relationship between melt-process induced TPU morphology and resultant thermo mechanical properties were examined and determined by means of quasi-static tensile test, creep experiment, tension test and dynamical mechanical analysis (DMA). Scanning electron beam microscope (SEM) and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) were used to study the morphology of the samples. A significant mathematical description of the stress-strain behaviour of TPU was found using a 3 term approach. Moreover it became evident that processing conditions such as processing temperature have crucial influence on morphology as well as short and long-term performance. To be more precise, samples processed at higher temperatures showed a lack of large hard segment agglomerates, a smaller strength for strains up to 250% and higher creep compliance.

OSTI ID:
22270985
Journal Information:
AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1593, Issue 1; Conference: PPS-29: 29. international conference of the Polymer Processing Society, Nuremberg (Germany), 15-19 Jul 2013; Other Information: (c) 2014 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English