Preparation And Toughening Of Epoxy Resin Based Shape Memory Poiymer

As a kind of new functional materials, shape memory polymers (SMP) are a veryimportant branch of polymer materials. Because of the dimensional stability, goodmechanical properties, chemical stability, and easily adjustment in thermal transitiontemperature, thermosetting epoxy resin is prior to other shape memory polymers and haspotential to apply in space deploysble structure.In the paper, methyl tetrahydrophthalic anhydride (MeTHPA) was used as hardenerand2-ethyl-4-methylimidazole was used as accelerator to cure epoxy resin E-51to prepareshape memory resin with good properties, then allyl glycidyl ether (AGE) andpolypropylene glycol diglycidyl ether (PPGDGE) were used to toughen the resins. Themechanical properties, heat resistance, shape memory properties and shape memoryinfluencing factors were studied.The results showed that:90%curing degree of epoxy resin system had good shapememory properties. With AGE and PPGDGE as toughening agents respectively, impactstrength of the epoxy resin system increased by28%and33.6%respectively, maximumdeformation increased by55°and56°in turn. For both kind of toughner, shape memoryfixed rate were all above97%, shape memory recovery rate were all above99%, shaperecovery start temperature, shape recovery end temperature and shape recoverytemperatures were reduced, shape recovery velocity increased by5times, recovery rateloss of cyclic deformation reduced by50%. The best weight percent of AGE must becontrolled between5%to15%and PPGDGE is10%to15%.