RESEARCH
Rubber is one of historical materials for more than hundred years, while the relationship between its network structure and its physical property is unsolved. Our project focuses on thermoplastic elastomer (TPE), a class of copolymers or a polymer blend, which exhibits both thermoplastic and elastomeric properties as shown in Figure 1. Although variety of TPE materials have been marketed, it is difficult to find any TPE which can be an alternative to rubbery materials. Thus, the purpose of our project is realizing a tough TPE through the concert among experiment, simulation and mathematics.
We pursuit the nano-scale structural change of TPE during tensile deformation by state-of-the-art experimental techniques such as Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)-based nanomechanics (Nakajima Group), Synchrotron Radiation Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) (Takahara Group), incorporated with data-assimilation simulation which visualize a stress network structure (Morita Group). The visualized dynamic stress network is analyzed by mathematics such as topology (Shimokawa Group). Finally, we propose a mathematical model describing a hierarchic network which emerges multi-functional properties by dynamical structural rearrangement in response to environmental changes (Kotani Group).
Figure 1 Dynamic network structure of TPE