ANALYSIS OF IDENTICAL EPOXY RESIN FORMULATIONS CURED THERMALLY OR BY ELECTRON BEAM

摘要

Over the past few years there have been several papers published on electron beam (EB) cured epoxy resins and composites. However, there has been little published work comparing the properties of identical epoxy resin formulations cured either by electron beam or thermal means. Also, there has been little published data on the effects of changing EB processing parameters. In this work we evaluated the effects on the loss modulus glass transition temperature by varying the resin composition and the processing parameters. The parameters selected for the EB curable resins, Tactix 123 (bisphenol A epoxy) and (4-octyloxyphenol)phenyliodonium hexafluoroantimonate initiator: initiator concentration (1-3 phr); curing dose (80-140 kGy); and dose per pass (5 or 20 kGy per pass). Identical epoxy resin formulations were also cured thermally (177 deg C for 3 hours). Comparisons were made using dynamic mechanical analysis. Results from this work demonstrated that the glass transition temperatures for EB and thermally cured epoxy resins were optimum for formulations having initiator concentrations between 1.5 and 2.0 phr. Research in this area is continuing.