Guest Post by Dr. R. Bruce Prime and Dr. John Avila In this post we illustrate the p1 form described in Part 11 of this series by fitting conversion – rate of conversion data to a phenomenological equation based in chemical kinetics that is commonly used to describe autocatalytic cure kinetics. Such data can be measured by DSC although in these examples we generate the data ... [Click to Continue...]

Guest Post by Dr. R. Bruce Prime and Dr. John Avila This post explores how the epoxy-amine stoichiometry can affect the cure path of autocatalytic cure reactions, providing additional insight into the behavior of epoxy-amine thermosets. We illustrate some interesting benefits as well as precautions of altering the stoichiometry. For a variety of reasons it is not uncommon for ... [Click to Continue...]

Guest Post by Dr. R. Bruce Prime and Dr. John Avila In this post we explore how adding an external catalyst or accelerator to increase the reaction rate can affect the cure path of autocatalytic cure reactions, providing additional insight into the behavior of epoxy-amine thermosets as well as commenting on some of the pros and cons of doing so. We show how added catalyst can ... [Click to Continue...]

Guest Post by Dr. R. Bruce Prime and Dr. John Avila This post outlines the mathematical approaches to model the cure behavior and then analyze the cure data to extract kinetic parameters. We do this by utilizing equations developed in the previous post that model the cure path of autocatalytic systems like epoxy-amine. Modeling Cure Behavior For this case we developed ... [Click to Continue...]