Structural aspects in polymers: interconnections between conformational parameters of the polymers with their physical properties

This article focuses on the influence of the geometric structure of the polymer chain on the physical properties of polymers. It is shown that for polyheteroarylenes the Kuhn segment calculated based on the geometric structure of the polymer chain has a good correlation with the physical properties of those polymers. For aliphatic polymers, a volume factor is suggested that equals the ratio of the Van der Waals volume of pendant substitute to the volume of the whole polymer chain. It is shown that the properties of aliphatic polymers that depend on free volume are well described by this value.