Reduced time as a unified parameter determining fixity and free recovery of shape memory polymers.

Shape memory polymers are at the forefront of recent materials research. Although the basic concept has been known for decades, recent advances in the research of shape memory polymers demand a unified approach to predict the shape memory performance under different thermo-temporal conditions. Here we report such an approach to predict the shape fixity and free recovery of thermo-rheologically simple shape memory polymers. The results show that the influence of programming conditions to free recovery can be unified by a reduced programming time that uniquely determines shape fixity, which consequently uniquely determines the shape recovery with a reduced recovery time. Furthermore, using the time-temperature superposition principle, shape recoveries under different thermo-temporal conditions can be extracted from the shape recovery under the reduced recovery time. Finally, a shape memory performance map is constructed based on a few simple standard polymer rheology tests to characterize the shape memory performance of the polymer.