Effect of vegetable‐based polyols in unimodal glass‐transition polyurethane slabstock viscoelastic foams and some guidance for the control of their structure–property behavior. II

Building on the dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) characterization of the viscoelastic (VE) foam materials discussed in part I of this two‐part sequential series of articles, in this second part, we provide further information on the general physical properties of many of the same soy polyol and castor‐oil VE foams. In particular, the tensile, tear, elongation, indentation force deflection, support factor, compression set, hysteresis and ball‐rebound (resilience), and density properties are addressed in this article. The air flow and force buildup after compression deformation are also considered. Particular attention is also given to noting the degree of correlation of ball‐rebound behavior to that of the DMA damping data provided in part I. We concluded that when all of the properties of these vegetable‐based VE foams were taken as a whole, they had acceptable structure–property behaviors for VE applications, although certainly, the formulations could undoubtedly be further fine‐tuned for additional optimization. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011