ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we show that the SME is not a unique feature of some particular polymers. The SME can be easily found in many polymeric materials around us, although sometimes other physical phenomena, such as creep, may result in shape recovery as well. Based on the working mechanisms for the SME discussed in Chapter 2, we may design and fabricate our own SMPs, including shape-memory foams, with the particular feature(s) that we need. Furthermore, the shape-memory performance of an existing SMP can be optimized by means of carefully selecting the processing parameters in programming and recovery.