A relative study of the effect of static and dynamic vulcanization upon shape memory nature of thermally actuated peroxide crosslinked polyolefinic blends

Abstract Thermally actuated peroxide crosslinked shape memory polyolefinic blends of EOC and EPDM has been developed. Effect of static and dynamic vulcanization process on the shape memory character has been pursued in detail. Shape memory properties study at 60°C reveals that statically vulcanized blend and dynamically vulcanized blend are superior in terms of shape fixity character and shape recovery behavior, respectively. Breakage of lower percentage of crystalline structure gives higher percentage of shape fixity for the statically vulcanized blend. In a parallel way, statically vulcanized blend shows better stress–strain properties also. On the other hand, higher degree of crosslinked network structure results higher shape recovery percentage for the dynamically vulcanized blend. Similar to shape recovery characteristics, dynamically vulcanized blend shows better thermal stability and higher percentage of gel content.