Abstract
A polyurethane (PU) elastomer film based on segmented poly(tetramethylene oxide) (PTMO) has been studied using wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS), and small-angle X-ray and neutron scattering (SAXS and SANS). The broad WAXS peaks measured for the PU elastomer reveal a low crystallinity of the soft segments PTMO and no crystalline domains for the hard segments, methylene bis(4-isocynatobenzene) (MDI), at 20 °C. Whereas small-angle scattering indicates the existence of hard-segment-rich aggregates. Using the contrast variation provided by the SANS and SAXS, we have extracted detailed structural information of the aggregates, including the shape, size, and the aggregation numbers. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.