Cardanyl linolenate (CDLN) and ally! cardanyl ether (ACDE) were synthesized from cardanol (CD) which is one of the inexpensive natural resources. Prepolymerized compounds of CDLN/4,4'-bismaleimidodiphenylmethane (BMI) and ACDE/BMI with the molar ratios of 1/2, 1/2.5 and 1/3 at 200 degrees C were compression-molded at 250 degrees C to produce cured CDLN/BMI and ACDE/BMI resins (cCDLN/BMI and cACDE/BMI), respectively. The.thermal and mechanical properties of cCDLN/BMI and cACDE/BMI were investigated in relation to the difference of reactivity between the linolenate group of CDLN and the allyl group of ACDE. The H-1 NMR and mass spectral analyses of the reaction product of methyl linolenate and N-phenylmaleimide (PMI) revealed that PMI-rich oligomer was produced by the addition copolymerization. FT-IR analyses of cCDIN/BMI and cACDE/BMI revealed that the terminal olefins have a higher reactivity toward the addition copolymerization or ene reaction with maleimide groups than the internal olefins. Although some components which were not incorporated into the polymer networks for cCDLN/BMIs caused a little reduction of storage modulus (E') before the glass transition starts, E's of cACDE/BMIs did not decrease until the glass transition starts at similar to 300 degrees C. The 5% weight loss temperatures (444-453 degrees C) of cACDE/BMIs were higher than those (327-426 degrees C) of cCDLN/BMIs. Also, cACDE/BMIs displayed much better flexural properties than cCDLN/BMIs. The fact that cACDE/BMIs showed better thermal and mechanical properties was attributed to a higher functionality (1.41) of terminal olefins for ACDE than that (0.41) for CDLN. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.