Chain dynamic parameters for some acrylic polymers

The dielectric relaxation data of Ishida et al. on a number of acrylic polymers are represented in terms of the relaxation function proposed by Havriliak and Negami using the multi-response techniques developed by Havriliak and Watts. Two of the parameters of this function are interpreted in terms of a temperature dependent distribution of relaxation times. In this method of interpretation the breadth of the distribution function is temperature-dependent while the skewness is not. The temperature dependence of the breadth of the distribution function is similar for most of these acrylic polymers.The parameters of the relaxation function are also interpreted in terms of Mansfield's model which represents intra- and inter-molecular interactions in terms of springs and dash pots. Briefly, increasing the side chain length for the methacrylate series increases the inter-molecular relaxation time which may be due to an increase in the entropy of activation for the orientation process. The difference between the one acrylate in this study and the four methacrylates of the series is a reduction in the intra-molecular relaxation time, apparently due to the lack of the alpha methyl group.