Thermomechanical and shape-memory properties of epoxy-based shape-memory polymer using diglycidyl ether of ethoxylated bisphenol-A

A series of epoxy-based shape-memory polymers (SMPs) was prepared by using diglycidyl ether of ethoxylated bisphenol-A containing two oxyethylene units and the curing agents iso-phorone diamine and Jeffamine D230. The thermal properties, dynamic mechanical properties, mechanical properties and shape-memory properties of the epoxy-based SMPs were systematically studied by DSC, DMTA, universal tester and fold-deploy experiments, respectively. The results showed that as the content of D230 increased, the glass transition temperature of the SMPs decreased from 77.5 ± 1.1 to 40 ± 0.7 °C according to DSC, the rubber modulus decreased gradually according to DMTA, and the tensile strength at room temperature (RT) decreased from 58.5 ± 0.3 to 27.0 ± 3.3 MPa according to tensile tests. Tensile tests above RT showed that the tensile stress and elongation at break depended heavily on the experimental temperature, and fold-deploy experiments showed that these SMPs had shape retention ratios higher than 95% and shape recovery ratios close to 100%.