Elastic behaviour of ideal polystyrene networks

Abstract

Polystyrene gels were prepared by anionic copolymerization of styrene and divinylbenzene in dilute solution (7.5%), the molecular weight between crosslinks ranging from 10 000 to 75 000. A study of the photoelasticity of these networks swollen to equilibrium in benzene and cyclohexane allowed some molecular parameters such as the memory term, the number of elastic chains, the functionality of the crosslinks, and the optical anisotropy of the random links to be calculated. The Mooney—Rivlin representation shows that both in elongation and compression, the C 2 term is nul, the C 1 term becoming identified with the theoretical modulus from the Flory, Wall and Hermans theory.