Dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) unsaturated polyester resin is widely used in fiberglass reinforced polymer applications for cost effectiveness and lower working viscosities. A disadvantage of DCPD resin is brittleness. Flexible resins made using Orthophthalic acid or Isophthalic acid are typically blended with DCPD resins in order to enhance toughness. Renewable vegetable oil based reactive oligomer is very flexible because of its long fatty alkyd chain. In this paper, one modified renewable vegetable oil oligomer was made directly from vegetable oil, which contains free radical polymerizable functionality was studied in use as a flexiblizer for DCPD resin. The effects on resin viscosity, monomer content, cure, physical properties, water absorption, and hardness development were studied with varying level of the reactive renewable oil oligomer. The effects on the properties of laminates made from resin containing the reactive renewable oil oligomer were also investigated. The data showed that the reactive renewable vegetable oil oligomer not only introduced green content into DCPD resin, but more importantly, increased resin physical properties dramatically, especially in a measure of toughness with a small change in the heat distortion temperature.
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