Relationship between structure and dynamic mechanical properties of thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer containing bi-soft segment

In this work, we investigated the microphase separation, mechanical, and dynamic mechanical properties of thermoplastic polyurethane elastomers (TPUs) with one-soft segment (polypropylene glycol, PPG, or hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene, HTPB) or bi-soft segment (PPG and HTPB) using FTIR, XRD, SAXS and amplitude modulated-frequency modulated viscoelastic mode of AFM (AM-FM mode AFM) methods. The results showed that the microphase separation process of hard and soft segments (HS and SS) in TPU containing PPG and HTPB soft segments (PPG-HTPB-PU) was restricted by randomly alternated bi-soft segments, which results in formation of a low content of irregular-shaped hard domain (HD). In addition, the microphase separation of PPG-HTPB-PU induced a triple-phased structure of HD, HTPB rich phase and mesophase. The mesophase of PPG-HTPB-PU was formed of HS, PPG and HTPB segments which were excluded out of HD and HPTB rich domains during microphase separation process. The damping temperature range (at tan δ greater than 0.3) of PPG-HTPB-PU was from −14.6 to 32.1°C (46.5°C) which was more broad than that of TPU containing HTPB soft segment (HTPB-PU). The broad damping temperature range of PPG-HTPB-PU is mainly attributed to the enhanced energy consumption caused by the frictional motions of mixed segments of mesophase.