PROCEDURE FOR POTTING CABLE ASSEMBLIES USING EPOXY RESINS
Methods, equipment and materials for potting electrical connectors of cable assemblies with epoxy resins
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Methods, equipment and materials for potting electrical connectors of cable assemblies with epoxy resins
The corrosive alkaline surface layer of an epoxy resin product formed by the curing of the epoxy with an aliphatic amine is eliminated by first applying a non-solvent to remove most or all of the free unreacted amine and then applying a layer of a chemical reagent to neutralize the unused amine or amine functional groups by forming a substituted urea. The surface then may be rinsed with acetone and then with alcohol. The non-solvent may be an alcohol. The neutralizing chemical reagent is a mono-isocyanate or a mono-isothiocyanate. Preferred is an aromatic mono-isocyanate such as phenyl isocyanate, nitrophenyl isocyanate and naplthyl isocyanate.
Mechanical properties of epoxy resins and glass filament-wound composites at cryogenic temperatures
Composite material technology was applied to the solid rocket booster by the development of a carbon filament-epoxy resin case which yields a net increase of 4000 lbs. in payload in the shuttle. The question of reusability of the new composite tanks has not yet been answered and will depend on the toughness of the matrix resin. The present study was aimed at providing conditions whereby test specimens of the epoxy resin (EPON/85) and curing agents of systematically varied structures could be produced in a controlled manner. Three sets of conditions were found that might allow the isolation of the structural effects on toughness from the cure effects. The kinetic methods leading to the determination of these conditions are described.
Photosensitive filler is added to curable epoxy resins to minimize stress from internal shrinkage during curing or polymerization. Cinnamic acid resins and cinnamal ketones may be added in the amount of 1 to 3 percent by weight of the resin mixture.
Compression testing of plastic plates reinforced with glass fibers preimpregnated with epoxy resin
This study investigates the effects of core-shell rubber (CSR) nanoparticles on the fracture toughness of an epoxy resin at liquid nitrogen (LN2) temperatures. Varying amounts of Kane Ace (Registered TradeMark) MX130 toughening agent were added to a commercially available EPON 862/W epoxy resin. Resulting fracture toughness was evaluated by the use of Charpy impact tests conducted on an instrumented drop tower. The size and distribution of the CSR nanoparticles were characterized using Transmission Electric Microscopy (TEM) and Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS). Up to nominal 4.6% addition of the CSR nanoparticles, resulted in a nearly 5 times increase in the measured breaking energy. However, further increases in the amount of CSR nanoparticles had no appreciable affect on the breaking energy.
Half patterns cast from commercial epoxy resin containing aluminum powder are used for shell-molding of aluminum parts. The half patterns are cast in plastic molds of the original wooden pattern. Ten serviceable sand resin molds are made from each epoxy pattern.
Cryogenic mechanical properties of epoxy resins and glass/epoxy composites
The effect of epoxy-size and degree of cure on the interfacial bonding of an epoxy-amine-graphite fiber composite system is examined. The role of the fiber-resin interface in determining the overall mechanical properties of composites is poorly understood. A good interfacial adhesive bond is required to achieve maximum stress transfer to the fibers in composites, but at the same time some form of energy absorbing interfacial interaction is needed to achieve high fracture toughening. The incompatibility of these two processes makes it important to understand the nature and basic factors involved at the fiber-resin interface as stress is applied. The mechanical properties including interlaminar shear values for graphite fiber-resin composites are low compared to glass and boron-resin composites. These differences have been attributed to poor fiber-matrix adhesion. Graphite fibers are commonly subjected to post-treatments including application of organic sizing in order to improve their compatibility with the resin matrix and to protect the fiber tow from damage during processing and lay-up. In such processes, sized graphite fiber tow is impregnated with epoxy resin and then layed-up i nto the appropriate configuration. Following an extended ambient temperature cure, the graphite-resin composite structure is cured at elevated temperature using a programmed temperature sequence to cure and then cool the product.
Plastic scintillator produced by the substitution of epoxy resins for the commonly used polystyrene is easy to cast, stable at room temperature, and has the desirable properties of a thermoset or cross-linked system. Such scintillators can be immersed directly in strong solvents, an advantage in many chemical and biological experiments.
The kinetics of polymerization/curing of a filament-wound composite epoxy resin consisting of an 80/20 DGEBA/DGEBD blend and an MDA/m-PDA blend (Tonox 60/40) was studied at various temperatures and at amine epoxy ratios between 1.1 and 4.4 by means of Fourier-transform (FT) IR and bulk viscosity measurements. The activation energy for the polymerization/curing reaction using an amine/epoxy ratio of 1.1 was 11.9 kcal/mole, in agreement with a previous value. The FT-IR conversion-time plots were fitted to a kinetic expression containing two rate constants with activation energies of 13.7 and 10.0 kcal/mole. The bulk viscosity followed the Williams et al. (1955) equation, with a Di Benedetto (1965) expression for the glass transition temperature.
Rapid visual and simple quantitative tests indicate the degree of cure of particular epoxy resin binders in prepreg stock. It is possible that these tests may be extended to a number of different epoxy formulations.
A generic method is developed to investigate the fracture behavior of an epoxy resin using atomistic molecular (MD) dynamics simulations. The epoxy system consisted of the stoichiometric mixture of tetra-/tri-functional epoxies and di-functional hardener molecules and was cured with a step-growth crosslinking algorithm. A hybrid force field (hFF) in which Morse bond function were added in second generation-general Amber Force Field (GAFF2) was used to capture bond breaking of the crosslinked epoxy system under uniaxial deformation. The Morse bond parameters for covalent bonds in the crosslinked backbone were fit to dissociation curves computed by CASPT2/6-311+G**. After the systems in various crosslink densities were obtained and equilibrated, the full length of stress-strain (𝜎-𝜀) curve was produced including initial elastic regime, yielding, plastic flow, strain hardening, and progressive failure. We found that the hFF was effective in studying the dissociation of crosslinked polymers and understanding the failure mechanism. In the results, the hFF delivered the same elastic property obtained from the unmodified force field GAFF. The stress-strain curve, however, began to be distinct in the plastic regime due to broken covalent bonds capable of altering the tensile behavior. Once the stress reached maximum, it progressively decreased until the ultimate failure (𝜎=0). Since hFF employed the existing GAFF functions with including a minimal change of its bond potential, this approach is easier to perform and computationally more efficient for unveiling the fracture behavior of polymer materials at the molecular level than other approaches with reactive force fields. We expect this approach will be utilized to accelerate the material-by-design process for thermosets by incorporate data from molecular models.
The linear viscoelastic properties have been measured for a series of bisphenol-A-based epoxy resins cured with the diamine DDS. The linear viscoelastic master curves were constructed via time-temperature superposition of frequency dependent G-prime and G-double-prime isotherms. The G-double-prime master curves exhibited two sub-Tg transitions. Superposition of isotherms in the glass-to-rubber transition (i.e., alpha) and the beta transition at -60 C was achieved by simple horizontal shifts in the log frequency axis; however, in the region between alpha and beta, superposition could not be effected by simple horizontal shifts along the log frequency axis. The different temperature dependency of the alpha and beta relaxation mechanisms causes a complex response of G-double-prime in the so called alpha-prime region. A novel numerical procedure has been developed to extract the complete relaxation spectra and its temperature dependence from the G-prime and G-double-prime isothermal data in the alpha-prime region.
Molecular dynamic (MD) simulations were performed to compute the mechanical properties of off-stoichiometric epoxy resins as a function of hardener/epoxy mixture ratio (r). Properties were characterized in relation to their microscopic structures. Such resins have been used recently for adhesive-free bonding of large-scale composite structures using the co-curing-ply method. In this process, two partially precured composite panels with hardener-poor (HP) off-stoichiometric resins are coupled with ply(ies) of complementary hardener-rich (HR) formulations and then cured simultaneously. This bonding process has the potential to produce reliable and certifiable composite joints without the need for additional fasteners, which are often required for many conventional bonding methods because even small amounts of contamination can cause a weak bond. The reflow and mixing of the HP/HR resin in this bonding process result in a joint with no discernable interface that should not be susceptible to surface contamination. However, incomplete mixing of the two offset resins may result in chemical heterogeneity of the cured polymeric joint. Thus, different r values may be obtained across the joint. Classical MD simulations were performed to compute the Young’s modulus of polymers with different r values and correlate their properties to network structures. High stiffness was associated with molecular packing due to chemical crosslinking, leading to a single network structure. Moreover, the networks became denser as the ratio approached the stoichiometric value r = 1. Thus, the r = 1 systems were single clusters, with high stiffness, high molecular weight, and a high degree of crosslinking. Structural properties such as radius of gyration and mean square displacement were determined to investigate the variation in the stiffness with respect to r. This MD simulation study was validated with experimental measurements.
Studies were performed to synthesize new ether modified, flexibilized aromatic diamine hardeners for curing epoxy resins. The effect of moisture absorption on the glass transition temperatures of a tetraglycidyl epoxy, MY 720, cured with flexibilized hardeners and a conventional aromatic diamine was studied. Unidirectional composites, using epoxy-sized Celion 6000 graphite fiber as the reinforcement, were fabricated. The room temperature and 300 F mechanical properties of the composites, before and after moisture exposure, were determined. The Mode I interlaminar fracture toughness of the composites was characterized using a double cantilever beam technique to calculate the critical strain energy release rate.
Results are presented from an experimental evaluation of IM7/8551-7 and IM6/18081, two new toughened epoxy resin, high strain graphite fiber composite materials. Data include ply-level strengths and moduli, notched tension and compression strengths and compression-after-impact assessments. The measured properties are compared with those of other graphite-epoxy materials.