Influence of Voluminous Substituents in Polyimides on Their Physical Properties

Seven series of polyimides have been analyzed and compared with regard to the correlation between their conformational rigidity parameters, such as the Kuhn segment, the characteristic ratio, the Van der Waals volume and free volume, and some physical properties, such as glass transition temperature, dielectric permittivity, and permeability to different gases. This review concentrates on the author's own work, placed in the context of the broader field. The conformational rigidity parameters were calculated by using the Monte Carlo method, while the values of physical properties were taken from published articles.