Research Areas
Block copolymers and blend systems
Block copolymers are macromolecules, consisting of two or more covalently joined homopolymer blocks. This special molecular architecture und the chemical incompatibility lead in most cases to a microphase separation and, hence, the development of nano-scaled morphologies. By variation of the molecular architecture and by direction of the morphology development, e.g. via processing or blending, the mechanical behaviour can be tailored over a wide range. In our group, the research focus lies in the development of the structure-property-reationships between the molecular architecture, the morphology and their mechanical and fracture-mechanical behaviour of styrene-butadiene based block copolymers with statistical copolymer middleblocks.
[ more ... ]
Nanocomposites
Because of their many-sided geomeries, outstanding chemical and physical properties, nanoparticles are particularly suitable fillers for polymeric composites. The properties of the composite can be tailored via the selected the single components, the filler concentration as well as processing technology and processing parameters.
[ more ... ]
Superelastic polymers
Superelastic polymers are thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) based on novel molecular architectures. They are characterised by very high elongation at break (partly more than 1500%) with simultaneously very low residual strains. Further, they exhibit high deformation energies and excellent mechanical damping properties. Within this key topic, the relationship between molecular structure, process parameters, the morphology and the elastomeric material behaviour of super-elastic polymers are investigated.
[ more ... ]
Up
