Static and dynamic thermo mechanical characterization of a bio-compatible shape-memory polymer

Au LMSSC, Cnam, Paris, le 18 octobre 2013 à 14h.

Pauline Butaud
Doctorante, institut FEMTO-ST (Franche-Comté Électronique Mécanique Thermique et Optique - Sciences et Technologies), Besançon, France

Shape memory polymers encounter a growing interest over the past ten years particularly because their eventual bio-compatibility leads to many bio-medical applications. They also present many benefits for the design of micro-adaptive systems for deployment or controlled damping materials. Indeed, the SMPs are polymeric smart materials which have the remarkable ability to recover their primary shape from a temporary one when submitted to an external stimulus.

The present study deals with the synthesis and the thermo-mechanical characterization of a thermally-actuated SMP. The polymer considered hereafter is a chemically cross-linked thermoset. It is synthesized via photo polymerization (UV curing) of the monomer tert-butyl acrylate (tBA) with the crosslinking agent poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate (PEGDMA) and the photoinitiator 2,2-dimethoxy-2-phenylacetophenone (DMPA).

A mechanical characterization has been performed using three kinds of tests: quasi-static tensile tests, tensile dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and modal tests. The Young's modulus and the Poisson ratio are determined at ambient temperature using the first technique. The DMA is used to determine the evolution of viscoelastic properties as a function of the temperature and the frequency under harmonic loading. The modal analysis is employed to identify the viscoelastic properties of the material at higher frequency. A comparison of the results obtained by these three experimental methods highlights their complementarity.