Influence of vinyl ester/styrene network structure on thermal and mechanical behavior

Abstract

AbstractThe influence of vinyl ester/styrene network structure on thermal and mechanical properties was investigated. The crosslink density of the resins was altered by changing the molecular weight of the vinyl ester oligomer and by varying the amount of styrene used during the crosslinking reaction leading to variations in both the physical network structure and the chemical composition of the polymeric networks. The glass transition temperatures of the network polymers were found to increase systematically with increasing crosslink density without the additional influence of the chemical composition as determined from both differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). The breadth of the glass transition regions increased with crosslink density for the DSC data, but the breadth assessed from the DMA data did not vary significantly for the network materials. A secondary relaxation was observed for the materials using DMA, and this relaxation did not appear to be significantly affected by changes in either the crosslink density or the composition of the network. Cooperativity studies involving time–temperature scaling of dynamic mechanical data in the glass formation temperature region were also conducted. The degree of segmental cooperativity at Tg appeared to be primarily influenced by the chemical composition of the networks. These issues dealing with the structure of the networks provided insight into the associated fracture properties in the glassy state (ambient temperature). Specifically, an empirically based linear correlation was found between the fracture toughness of the networks and the cooperative domain size at the glass transition temperature normalized by the crosslink density. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 80: 917–927, 2001