THERMODYNAMIC BEHAVIOR AND MECHANISMS OF DEFORMATION OF PHASE-SEPARATED MULTIBLOCK COPOLYMERS AS REVEALED FROM DEFORMATION CALORIMETRY

The thermodynamic analysis of the uniaxial stretching of block copolym ers of various chemical compositions and hard block contents was carri ed out using a deformation calorimetry method. It was found that the i nitial small deformations result from the volume elasticity of the har d phase, independent of its content and chemical nature. The intramole cular energy contributions of soft blocks to the deformation thermodyn amics were estimated. It was shown that the hard block contributions d epend on their content and degree of sample stretching. The samples we re divided into two groups with respect to their thermodynamic behavio r.