RHEOLOGICAL BEHAVIOUR OF THERMOPLASTIC POLY(ESTER-SILOXANE)S

Two series of thermoplastic elastomers (TPES), based on poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) as the soft segment and poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT) as the hard segment, were analyzed by dynamic mechanical spectroscopy. In the first TPES series the lengths of both hard and soft segments were varied while the mass ratio of the hard to soft segments was nearly constant (about 60 mass%). In the second series, the mass ratio of hard and soft segments was varied in the range from 60/40 to 40/60, with a constant length of soft PDMS segments. The influence of the structure and composition of TPESs on the rheological properties, such as complex dynamic viscosity, eta*, the storage, G', and loss, G '', shear modulus as well as the microphase separation transition temperature, T-MST, was examined. The obtained results showed that the storage modulus of the TPESs increased in a rubbery plateau region with increase in degree of crystallinity. The rheological measurements of TPESs also showed that a microphase reorganization occurred during the melting process. The microphase separation transition temperatures were in the range from 220 to 234 degrees C. In the isotropic molten state, the complex dynamic viscosity increased with increasing both the content and lenght of hard PBT segments.