Recent extensive studies have distinguished a special class of polymers which are able to form thermotropic mesophases despite the absence of mesogenes in their chemical structure [1]. In the most striking form the tendency to form such mesophases is displayed by polymers with flexible inorganic backbone, such as poly(diethylsiloxane)/PDES/. In this presentation recent results concerning mechanical and thermomechanical behaviour of a series of PDES mesophase elastomers are considered. Three types of PDES elastomers were studied: crosslinked samples prepared by peroxide vulcanization [2,3], crosslinked samples vulcanized by a multifunctional siloxane resin [4] and block copolymers with ladder polysilsesquioxane as the hard block and PDES as the soft block [5].
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.