Measurement of Oxygen Permeability of Epoxy Polymers

Abstract

This paper describes an experimental technique that refines and extends available methods to measure the oxygen permeability of polymers such as epoxies that cannot easily be prepared as thin films. A simple Fick’s law-based quasi-steady-state diffusion model was developed to extract the permeation coefficient from the experimental data. The validity of this technique was established by comparing results with published values. Tests were subsequently conducted to determine the oxygen permeation rates for five representative commercially available epoxy polymers. The results showed that the oxygen permeation rates for the different epoxies were comparable, making them all suitable for corrosion repair. This suggests that repair costs may be optimized by selecting the most cost-effective epoxy system. The applicability of the findings is discussed and an illustrative numerical example is presented.