NEW DERIVATION OF AVERAGE PROPERTIES OF NETWORK POLYMERIZATIONS.

A new method for calculating average physical properties, such as average mol. wt, gel point, weight fraction solubles and crosslink density, is presented for nonlinear polymers. In contrast to the previous methods of Flory and Stockmayer which first calculate the distribution of all species and then use the distributions to calculate average properties, the new method calculates these properties directly. Starting with elementary probability laws and utilizing the recursive nature of network polymers, property relations can be developed more simply. The method for calculations of M//w, gel point, weight fraction solubles and crosslink density for a wide variety of polyfunctional polymerizations are illustrated.