Curing reaction of epoxy resin composed of mixed base resin and curing agent: Experiments and molecular simulation

Tomonaga Okabe, Tomohiro Takehara, Keisuke Inose, Noriyuki Hirano, Masaaki Nishikawa, Takuya Uehara

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

68 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the influence of base resin and curing agent and their mixture on the curing characteristics by performing experiments and molecular simulations. In the curing experiment of epoxy resin, we used differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to obtain the conversion by mixing curing agents and base resins. We used the molecular orbital method (MO) and the molecular dynamics method (MD) to simulate the curing reaction in molecular scale and investigate the effect of differences in resin composition on the curing characteristics. This simulation took into consideration activation energy, heat of formation, and polarization in the curing reaction. The simulation captures the trend of curing reaction obtained by the experiment. We found that the selection and mixture of curing agents are very important when controlling the curing characteristics of epoxy resin.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)4660-4668
Number of pages9
JournalPolymer
Volume54
Issue number17
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2013 Aug 2

Keywords

  • Curing characteristics
  • Molecular dynamics
  • Thermosetting resin

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Curing reaction of epoxy resin composed of mixed base resin and curing agent: Experiments and molecular simulation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this