Curing behavior and processability of BMI/3‐APN system for advanced glass fiber composite laminates

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe prepolymers containing bismaleimide (BMI) and 3‐aminophenoxyphthalonitrile (3‐APN) were prepared through simple solution prepolymerization, and the corresponding curing behaviors and processability were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry and dynamic rheological analysis. The results showed that the processability of the prepolymers could be controlled by temperature and time on processing, also depended on the relative content of 3‐APN and BMI. The possible curing reactions of the prepolymers were studied by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, which involved the Michael addition between BMI and 3‐APN and self‐polymerization of BMI or 3‐APN. The resulting polymers displayed high thermo‐oxidative stabilities (T5% > 425 °C) and good adhesion capability. Furthermore, BMI/3‐APN systems were employed to prepare BMI/3‐APN/glass fiber (GF) composite laminates and their morphological, mechanical, and electrical stable properties were also investigated. The BMI/3‐APN/GF laminates exhibited the improvement of the mechanical properties (the maximum flexural strength is 633.5 MPa and flexural modulus is 38.7 GPa) compared with pristine BMI/GF laminates because of the strong interfacial adhesions between GF and matrices, which was confirmed with SEM observations. This study provides a concise strategy for diversifying the preparation of BMI/3‐APN prepolymers to obtain advanced GF composite laminates with various properties which have potential applications in industrial manufacture or electronic circuit, and so on. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 43640.