An investigation on shape memory behavior of glass fiber/SBS/LDPE composites

The poly (styrene-b-butadiene-b-styrene) triblock copolymer (SBS) and linear low density polyethylene (LDPE) were blended to prepare shape memory polymer (SMP), various amounts of short glass fiber (SGF) were filled into SMP to form a novel shape memory SGF/SBS/LDPE composite. The shape memory composites were fully characterized using gel content, mechanical test, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and shape memory behavior. Thermo mechanical experiments resulted that the melting temperature of the developed composites is about 110 °C and SGF has almost no effect on the shape memory transition temperature of the composite. The incorporation of SGF leads to the best overall reinforcing effect in tensile modulus, tensile strength and elongation at break. Full recovery can be observed after only several minutes at different temperatures when SGF content is less than 2.0 wt.%. However, when the SGF content rises to 2.5 wt.%, composites could not full recovery to initial shape.