Inorganic Bottlebrush and Comb Polymers as a Platform for Supersoft, Solvent-Free Elastomers.

Due to their unique rheological and mechanical properties, bottlebrush polymers are inimitable components of biological and synthetic systems such as cartilage and ultrasoft elastomers. However, while their rheological properties can be precisely controlled through their macromolecular structures, the current chemical spectrum available is limited to a handful of synthetic polymers with aliphatic carbon backbones. Herein we design and synthesize a series of inorganic bottlebrush polymers based on a unique combination of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and polyphosphazene (PPz) chemistry. This non-carbon-based platform allows for simple variation of the significant architectural dimensions of bottlebrush-polymer-based elastomers. Grafting PDMS to PPz and vice versa also allows us to further exploit the unique properties of these polymers combined in a single material. These novel hybrid bottlebrush polymers were cured to give supersoft, solvent-free elastomers. We systematically studied the effect of architectural parameters and chemical functionality on their rheological properties. Besides forming supersoft elastomers, the energy dissipation characteristics of the elastomers were observed to be considerably higher than those for PDMS-based elastomers. Hence this work introduces a robust synthetic platform for solvent-free supersoft elastomers with potential applications as biomimetic damping materials.

Hyperelastic Material Parameter Determination and Numerical Study of TPU and PDMS Dampers.

Dampers provide safety by controlling unwanted motion that is caused due to the conversion of mechanical work into another form of energy (e.g., heat). State-of-the-art materials are elastomers and include thermoplastic elastomers. For the polymer-appropriate replacement of multi-component shock absorbers comprising mounts, rods, hydraulic fluids, pneumatic devices, or electro-magnetic devices, among others, in-depth insights into the mechanical characteristics of damper materials are required. The ultimate objective is to reduce complexity by utilizing inherent material damping rather than structural (multi-component) damping properties. The objective of this work was to compare the damping behavior of different elastomeric materials including thermoplastic poly(urethane) (TPU) and silicone rubber blends (mixtures of different poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)). Therefore, the materials were hyper- and viscoelastic characterized, a finite element calculation of a ball drop test was performed, and for validation, the rebound resilience was measured experimentally. The results revealed that the material parameter determination methodology is reliable, and the data that were applied for simulation led to realistic predictions. Interestingly, the rebound resilience of the mixture of soft and hard PDMS (50:50) wt% was the highest, and the lowest values were measured for TPU.