MODELING THE CURE OF A COMMERCIAL EPOXY-RESIN FOR APPLICATIONS IN RESIN TRANSFER MOLDING

An analytical procedure has been developed for modelling the kinetics of the cure process of a commercial epoxy resin for resin transfer mou lding (RTM) applications, using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC ) in the isothermal and dynamic modes to obtain the experimental datab ase. The overall reaction rate of the epoxide groups with amines was d etermined and fitted by an autocatalytic kinetic model. An improvement of the model to allow for diffusion limitation effects results in a g ood agreement between experimentally determined and predicted reaction rates. A non-linear least squares regression analysis method based on Marquardt's algorithm was used to fit the DSC reaction rate data with an appropriate model and to evaluate the activation energies and the reaction orders for this particular resin system. The Di Benedetto equ ation was utilised to establish the relationship between conversion an d glass transition temperature (T-g), required to develop the diffusio n-dominated part of the model.