Hyperbranched amine additives as toughening agents for epoxy resins

摘要

In common with other thermosetting resins, epoxy resins tend to suffer from brittleness, poor resistance to crack propagation and low impact strength. Consequently there is a need to improve the toughness of epoxy resins without having a detrimental effect on the otherwise high performance properties of these resins. One approach mentioned in the literature is the use of hyperbranched polymers as additives, which can show quite efficient toughening and internal stress reduction behaviour in the case of phase-separating additives.