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Evaluation of the Curing of Adhesive Systems by Rheological and Thermal Testing
Published on: July 3, 2020
A Numerical Model to Predict the Relaxation Phenomena in Thermoset Polymers and Their Effects on Residual Stress
Raffaele Verde1, Alberto D'Amore1, Luigi Grassia1
1Department of Engineering, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", via Roma, 29, 81031 Aversa, Italy.
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the effect of crosslinking reactions on a thermoset polymer's viscoelastic properties. In particular, a numerical model to predict the evolution of epoxy's mechanical properties during the curing process is proposed and implemented in an Ansys APDL environment. A linear viscoelastic behavior is assumed, and the scaling of viscoelastic properties in terms of the temperature and degree of conversion is modeled using a modified version of the TNM (Tool-Narayanaswamy-Mohynian) model. The effects of the degree of conversion and structural relaxation on epoxy's relaxation times are simultaneously examined for the first time. This formulation is based on the thermo-rheological and chemo-rheological simplicities hypothesis and can predict the evolution of epoxy's relaxation phenomena. The thermal-kinetic reactions of curing are implemented in a homemade routine written in APDL language, and the structural module of Ansys is used to predict the polymer's creep and stress relaxation curves at different temperatures and degrees of conversion.
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