Thermomechanical Properties of Shape Memory Polymers of Polyurethane Series and their Applications

Shape memory polymers of polyurethane series have been developed. These polymers have the following features. (1) They can be molded easily similar to conventional plastics, (2) their shape recovery temperature can be set arbitrarily, and (3) they can be colored as required because they are transparent, making a wide range of applications possible. In this paper. the basic characteristics of the stress-straintemperature-t ime relationship of shape memory polymers of the polyurethane series are invest igated exper i menta I 1 Y, and several app 1 i cat ions of these po 1 ymers are introduced.