Thermal transitions Crystallization, Glass transition

The CLTE is an important consideration if dissimilar materials like one plastic to another or a plastic to metal and so forth that are to be assembled where material expansion or contraction is restricted. The CLTE is influenced by the type of plastic (liquid crystal, for example) and RP (particularly the glass fiber content and its orientation). It is especially important if the temperature range includes a thermal transition such as Tg. Normally, all this activity with dimensional changes is available from material suppliers. 

Although each of these cyclic siloxane monomers can be polymerized separately to synthesize the respective homopolymers, in practice they are primarily used to modify and further improve some specific properties of polydimethylsiloxanes. The properties that can be changed or modified by the variations in the siloxane backbone include the low temperature flexibility (glass transition temperature, crystallization and melting behavior), thermal, oxidation, and radiation stability, solubility characteristics and chemical reactivity. Table 9 summarizes the effect of various substituents on the physical properties of resulting siloxane homopolymers. The... 

The most commonly used siloxane modifiers are those having phenyl, trifluoro-propyl and cyanopropyl substituents. Introduction of phenyl units into the polydimethylsiloxane backbone either in the form of methylphenylsiloxane or diphenyl-siloxane increases the thermal and oxidative stability, glass transition temperature and the organic solubility characteristics of the resulting copolymers. At low levels (5-10 percent by weight) of incorporation, bulky phenyl groups also break up the regularity of polydimethylsiloxane chains and inhibit the crystallization (Tc... 

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