Shape-memory polymers

By M. Behl, A. Lendlein. 2002

154 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Shape-memory polymers are an emerging class of active polymers that have dual-shape capability. They can change their shape in a predefined way from shape A to shape B when exposed to an appropriate stimulus. While shape B is given by the initial processing step, shape A is determined by applying a process called programming. We review fundamental aspects of the molecular design of suitable polymer architectures, tailored programming and recovery processes, and the quantification of the shape-memory effect. Shape-memory research was initially founded on the thermally induced dual-shape effect. This concept has been extended to other stimuli by either indirect thermal actuation or direct actuation by addressing stimuli-sensitive groups on the molecular level. Finally, polymers are introduced that can be multifunctional. Besides their dual-shape capability, these active materials are biofunctional or biodegradable. Potential applications for such materials as active medical devices are highlighted.

Subfields: Polymers and Plastics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8467dc142b7debd10a3a6a861a50cdc126f2af1c

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In Polymers and Plastics

1. Qibing Pei
2. Carmel Majidi

Citations in the corpus

• Controllable and reversible tuning of material rigidity for robot applications (2018, background): “(b) Change of SMP’s elastic modulus with temperature [105].”