‘Cure Index’ for thermoset composites

Abstract

Almost all properties of thermoset composites are more or less dependent on the situation of network formation in a system in which fillers/additives may function as cure facilitator or inversely hinder curing reactions as barriers between cure moieties or reactants by restricting the intermolecular collisions. Nonisothermal calorimetry provides useful data to quantify curing phenomenon in thermoset composites, but there is a need for a universal criterion by which one can simply give a unique signature to a thermoset composite cured at a given heating rate. This short communication proposes a dimensionless criterion, hereafter known as ‘Cure Index’, for typical epoxy-based systems containing 0D nanoparticles. The proposed universal criterion is calculated and compared for well-defined thermoset composites in order to establish the worth and powerfulness of the defined 'Cure Index'.