Curing Kinetics Modeling of Epoxy Modified by Fully Vulcanized Elastomer Nanoparticles Using Rheometry Method

Abstract

In this study, the curing kinetics of epoxy nanocomposites containing ultra-fine full-vulcanized acrylonitrile butadiene rubber nanoparticles (UFNBRP) at different concentrations of 0, 0.5, 1 and 1.5 wt.% was investigated. In addition, the effect of curing temperatures was studied based on the rheological method under isothermal conditions. The epoxy resin/UFNBRP nanocomposites were characterized via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). FTIR analysis exhibited the successful preparation of epoxy resin/UFNBRP, due to the existence of the UFNBRP characteristic peaks in the final product spectrum. The morphological structure of the epoxy resin/UFNBRP nanocomposites was investigated by both field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies. The FESEM and TEM studies showed UFNBRP had a spherical structure and was well dispersed in epoxy resin. The chemorheological analysis showed that due to the interactions between UFNBRP and epoxy resin, by increasing UFNBRP concentration at a constant temperature (65, 70 and 75 °C), the curing rate decreases at the gel point. Furthermore, both the curing kinetics modeling and chemorheological analysis demonstrated that the incorporation of 0.5% UFNBRP in epoxy resin matrix reduces the activation energy. The curing kinetic of epoxy resin/UFNBRP nanocomposite was best fitted with the Sestak–Berggren autocatalytic model.

Parametric Numerical Study and Multi-Objective Optimization of Composite Curing through Infrared Radiation

“…where x is the degree of cure, A is the pre-exponential factor, E is the activation energy, R is the universal gas constant, T is the temperature and m and n are dimensionless constants. The range of each parameter is supported by several studies in the field [43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50].…”

Method for determining resin cure kinetics with low-frequency Raman spectroscopy

“…Many experimental techniques are used to monitor resin cure kinetics including changes in refractive index, [8][9][10] rheology, 11,12 and dielectric analysis [13][14][15] although differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy are perhaps the most widely implemented. DSC exposes a sample to a thermal profile and measures the heat flow during the curing process.…”