Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals, Vol.412, 1703-1711, 2004
Pattern formation in a bi-soft segment urethane elastomer
In the present work we study pattern formation in a bi-soft segment urethane/urea elastomer. The material under study is a film prepared from a polypropylene oxide based isocyanate terminated triol prepolymer (PU) and polybutadiene diol (PBDO) with 60% by weight of PBDO. Small angle light scattering (SALS) patterns were recorded as a fraction of elongation for different rates of extension. It was found that the process of band and stripe formation is dependent upon the sample elongation and rate of extension with a strong increase of band and stripe amplitude with increasing elongation. The SALS data also reveals that the bands' periodicity is independent of the rate of extension within the range studied.