TREATMENT OF AN EPOXY-RESIN BY EXIMER LASER-RADIATION

The surface of carbon fibre reinforced plastics is usually cleaned pri or to adhesive bonding. If epoxy resins are the matrix materials, grin ding is the most often used procedure. Laser treatment seems to be a m ore reproducible alternative. In this paper the influence of eximer la ser radiation (248 nm) on the surface properties of an epoxy resin is shown. At low laser energy densities the lap shear strength with the e poxy based adhesive Hysol(R) EA 9394 is on an appropriate revel with a n improved reproducibility, but at higher energy densities the lap she ar strength decreases caused by the formation of a surface layer with a lower strength. This is caused by the decomposition of the resin sur face, which is shown by XPS. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.