Evaluation of physico-mechanical properties of precipitated polyurethane films in medium of free radical agents

Segmented poly(ester-urethanes) (PU) elastomers based on poly(ethylene diethylene adipate)diols as a soft segment and aromatic diisocyanates in the hard segment were synthesized by a conventional method. The precipitated PU elastomers films have been degraded after a limited exposure to free radical agents. An increase of the ratio of radical agents had an increase in the hard segment content which was associated with increased hard microdomain crystallinity, hardness and improvement in mechanical properties. It is suggested that the superior mechanical performance may be related to a interconnecting hard microdomain texture by a radical cross-linking process. The present study attempts to correlate the physical-mechanical properties of the precipitated PU films with the concentration of the free radical agents. In all cases, the effect of free radical cross-linking was to increase the ultimate tensile strain. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.