Kinetics analysis of the curing reaction of fast core epoxy prepregs

In this article, the curing kinetics of two fast cure flip-chip epoxy encap sulants under both isothermal and nonisothermal conditions are investigated by differential scanning calorimetry. The method allows determination of t he most suitable kinetic model and corresponding parameters. The kinetic an alysis suggests that the two-parameter autocatalytic model is more appropri ate to describe the kinetics of the curing reaction. There are certain diff erences between the kinetic data from isothermal and that from nonisotherma l measurements. The apparent activation energy Ea and pre-exponential facto r A of E-AB1 determined from nonisothermal experiments were higher than the isothermal values, whereas the Ea and A of E-RV2 determined from both meth ods are relatively close. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.