Effect of structural heterogeneities on mechanical properties of polymer gels

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25708033
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Polymer/Textile materials
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Sakai Takamasa 東京大学, 工学(系)研究科(研究院), 准教授 (70456151)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 高分子ゲル / 構造不均一性 / 構造物性相関 / Tetra-PEGゲル

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We introduced controlled heterogeneity in Tetra-PEG gel, which has homogeneous network structure, and attempted to evaluate them separately. As a result, it was suggested that the Tetra-PEG gels fabricated at the overlapping concentration have uniform network structures, Their elastic moduli obeyed the phantom model, and the fracture energy can be described by the Lake-Thomas model. It was suggested that the influence of the heterogeneous distribution of the sub-chain length and that of the dangling chain is not significant as the heterogeneity. On the other hand, the influences of the entanglement and the loop are detected as the deviation between the model prediction and the experimental values. These results may help understand the fundamental physical properties of polymer network.

Free Research Field

高分子科学