Polymer Engineering and Science, Vol.39, No.8, 1508-1516, 1999
Water diffusion in unsaturated polyester films. Effect of plasticization on the glass transition
Water diffusion through Unsaturated Polyester Resin (UPR) is investigated. From differential scanning calorimetry, we observe that the plasticization effect due to water sorption leads to large variations of T-g and is a reversible phenomenon. The transport of water through the polymer is characterized with a new instrument developed in our laboratory which shows that the water transport deviates from Fickian behavior. It is found that the diffusion coefficient is not a constant and experimental data are in good agreement with D = D(o)e(gamma)C where gamma is a plasticization coefficient.