Structural resins have historically found ubiquitous use across various industries as lightweight adhesives. As the automotive, aerospace and electronics industries continue to look to increase performance to weight ratios, the need for improved resin designs becomes apparent. One main focus here is the improvement of ductility in glassy materials. In particular, highly crosslinked networks, such as epoxy-amines, provide an encouraging platform for solvent and creep resistance, high strength, and environmental stability, however they suffer from brittle-like behavior well below the T<sub>g</sub>. Over the last decade, several efforts have systematically probed the influence of the ‘static’ network structure on the performance of crosslinked glasses. However, responsive, or adaptive, glasses provide a relatively unexplored avenue for an on-demand mechanical response. While three response mechanisms are outlined to provide a range of mechanical behaviors on demand: (i) shape-changing functionalities which locally yield or soften the material to stimulate chain mobility; (ii) bond forming (or breaking) chemistries which increase (or decrease) the stiffness of the material; and (iii) energy absorbing groups which convert the incoming stimuli into a spatially controlled heating and result in a designed softening of the material, many challenges still remain in achieving controlled responses deep in the glassy state.

Adaptive polymer glasses based on structural relationships for material toughening

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.