STRUCTURAL AND RHEOOPTICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF RANDOM BICOMPONENT NETWORKS PREPARED OF HYDROXYL-TELECHELIC POLYISOBUTYLENE AND POLYTETRAHYDROFURAN

The structure of a bicomponent network prepared of hydroxyl-telechelic polyisobutylene (HO-PiB-OH) and polytetrahydrofuran (HO-PTHF-OH) has been characterized by small-angle and wide-angle x-ray scattering, bir efringence, and differential scanning calorimetry. A single phase rand om network was obtained by endlinking HO-PIB-OH/HO-PTHF-OH mixtures us ing triphenyl methane triisocyanate (TTI) as a crosslinking agent. A s mall-angle x-ray scattering peak was observed in the PIE networks as w ell as in the PIB/PTHF bicomponent networks. The glass transition temp erature of the random bicomponent network increased with decreasing PT HF molecular weight as the network became tighter, Network tensile pro perties were analyzed in terms of Gaussian and non-Gaussian network mo dels. The stress-optical law was tested for random networks by measuri ng the variation of birefringence and stress as a function of elongati on.