• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.35-40
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• 1999

The variations of the glass transition, melting peaks, molecular weight and its distribution (polydispersity index: PI) due to the annealing temperature and time have been investigated using the thermoplastic segmented polyurethanes (TPUs) and its blends based on the contents of hard segment. The position of the melting peak and its magnitude have been increased with the annealing temperature and time. This may be arised from the rearrangement of the microdomain structure due to the long-range or short-range segmental motion, the order-disorder transition of non-crystalline microphase, the variation of the domain size or the degree of disorder of crystalline structure by given different thermal histories. The annealing temperature and time affected the molecular weights and polydispersity : the number and weight average molecular weights were increased, while the polydispersity index (PI) deceased at certain temperatures : for TPU-35 at $135^{\circ}C$, for TPU-44 at $170^{\circ}C$ and for TPU-53 at $180^{\circ}C$. The temperatures which give the variations in molecular weights and in PIs are consistent with the annealing temperatures of which $T_3$ solely exists for each sample. Thus it is suggested that the chain dissosiation and recombination simultaneously occur at the above mentioned temperature for each sample.