TY - JOUR A1 - Pretsch, Thorsten A1 - Jakob, Ines A1 - Müller, Werner T1 - Hydrolytic degradation and functional stability of a segmented shape memory poly(ester urethane) JF - Polymer degradation and stability N2 - In order to understand the effects of water and hydrolytic ageing on semi-crystalline poly(ester urethane) and its shape memory functionality, water immersion experiments at elevated temperature have been performed on a model substance and various parameters were monitored: change of the melting/crystallisation temperatures, substantial increase in crystallinity, temperature dependence of the water diffusion coefficient and solubility, hydrogen-bonding index and phase mixing by peak deconvolution of the FT-IR carbonyl region and day-to-day tensile and thermo-mechanical cyclic tensile tests. A rising fraction of freezable water agglomerates in the polymer was found for specimens cooled from the immersion temperature. The degradation process could be divided into three phases: an induction phase, a phase of continuous degradation and a phase of accelerated degradation. Shape recovery remains fairly constant during phase one and decreases slowly during phase two. The increase in crystallinity in phase two is accompanied by an increase in shape fixing ability. KW - Shape memory polymer KW - Poly(ester urethane) KW - Thermo-mechanical properties KW - Hydrolysis PY - 2009 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymdegradstab.2008.10.012 SN - 0141-3910 SN - 1873-2321 VL - 94 IS - 1 SP - 61 EP - 73 PB - Applied Science Publ. CY - London AN - OPUS4-18661 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -