No abstract

Phenolic resin has long been used as matrix for composites mainly because of its flame retardant behavior and high char yield after pyrolysis, which results in a self supporting structure. The addition of ceramic powders, such as SiC and B 4 C, as fillers to the phenolic resin, results in better thermo-oxidative stability, but as drawbacks, it has poor homogeneity, adhesion and processing difficulties during molding of the composites. The addition of single elements, such as boron, silicon and phosphorus in the main backbone of the thermo-set resin is a new strategy to obtain special high performance resins, which results in higher mechanical properties, avoiding the drawbacks of simply adding fillers, which results in enhanced thermo-oxidative stability compared to conventional phenol-formaldehyde resins. Therefore, the product can have several applications, including the use as ablative thermal protection for thermo-structural composites. This work describes the preparation of a boron-modified phenolic resin (BPR) using salicyl alcohol and boric acid. The reaction was performed in refluxing toluene for a period of four hours, which produced a very high viscosity amber resin in 90% yield.The final structure of the compound, the boric acid double, substituted at the hydroxyl group of the aromatic ring, was determined with the help of the Infrared Spectroscopy, 1 H-NMR, TGA-DSC and boron elemental analysis. The absorption band of the group B-O at 1349 cm-1 can be visualized at the FT-IR spectrum. 1 H-NMR spectra showed peaks at 4.97-5.04 ppm and 3.60-3.90 ppm assigned to belong to CH 2 OH groups from the alcohol. The elemental analysis was also performed for boron determination.The product has also been tested in carbon and silicon fibers composite for the use in thermal structure. The results of the tests showed composites with superior mechanical properties when compared with the conventional phenolic resin.

The main objective of these studies was the synthesis and characterization of new energetic binders and their use in some propellant formulations. Following the working plan elaborated, the synthesis and characterization of the following compounds has been done successfully:The scale up for the synthesis of copolymer GAP/PolyBAMO and PolyBAMO using GAP as initiator has been done and they were fully characterized by IR, ( 1 H, 13 C) NMR-spectroscopy, GPC, elemental analysis, OH-functionality, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and sensitivity tests (friction, impact). For this two scale up synthesis some propellant formulations were carried out and the results of mechanical and burning properties have been compared with GAP propellants.

Dynamic mechanical properties of a polyurethane (PU) elastomer and a mortar processed with the same elastomer (modified polytetramethylene ether glycol (PTMEG)) were studied. The results obtained showed that the liquid aromatic amine ETHACURE® 300, used as cure agent, can be used to substitute the aromatic amine MOCA®, which is usually used as cure agent in high performance elastomers. The resulting mortar produced with ETHACURE® 300 presents similar dynamic‐mechanical thermal properties when compared with MOCA ®. However, dynamic‐mechanical thermal analysis studies showed that the mortar developed with ETHACURE® 300 presents some advantages such as the low values of tan δ, indicating a good capacity of recovery of the strain after retreating an applied force. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012