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Updated: May 28, 2026

Fabrication of a Bioactive, PCL-based "Self-fitting" Shape Memory Polymer Scaffold
Published on: October 23, 2015
Characterizing and modeling the free recovery and constrained recovery behavior of a polyurethane shape memory
Brent L Volk1, Dimitris C Lagoudas, Duncan J Maitland
1Materials Science and Engineering Program, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
Abstract:
In this work, tensile tests and one-dimensional constitutive modeling are performed on a high recovery force polyurethane shape memory polymer that is being considered for biomedical applications. The tensile tests investigate the free recovery (zero load) response as well as the constrained displacement recovery (stress recovery) response at extension values up to 25%, and two consecutive cycles are performed during each test. The material is observed to recover 100% of the applied deformation when heated at zero load in the second thermomechanical cycle, and a stress recovery of 1.5 MPa to 4.2 MPa is observed for the constrained displacement recovery experiments.After performing the experiments, the Chen and Lagoudas model is used to simulate and predict the experimental results. The material properties used in the constitutive model - namely the coefficients of thermal expansion, shear moduli, and frozen volume fraction - are calibrated from a single 10% extension free recovery experiment. The model is then used to predict the material response for the remaining free recovery and constrained displacement recovery experiments. The model predictions match well with the experimental data.
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