Thermal and mechanical characterization of epoxy resins toughened using preformed particles

Abstract

AbstractPreformed, multilayer particles have been used to toughen an epoxy resin. The particles were formed by emulsion polymerization and consist of alternate glassy and rubbery layers, the outer layer having glycidyl groups to give the possibility of chemical bonding of the particles in the cured resin. Two variants of this type of particle were used, termed GM(47/15) and GM(47/37); both types have an overall diameter of 0.5 µm, but the former have a thicker rubbery layer. For comparison, acrylic toughening particles (ATP) with no surface functionality and a liquid carboxyl‐terminated butadiene–acrylonitrile (CTBN) rubber were used as toughening agents. The epoxy resin system consisted of a commercial diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (Shell Epon 828) with diamino‐3,5‐diethyl toluene as hardener, two commercial sources of which were used, namely Ethacure‐100 (Albemarle SA) and DX6509 (Shell Chemicals). These hardeners contain a mixture of two isomers, namely 2,6‐diamino‐3,5‐diethyltoluene and 2,4‐diamino‐3,5‐diethyltolueneThermogravimetry in nitrogen shows that the preformed toughening particles begin to degrade at 230 °C, whereas the cured resin begins to degrade rapidly at 350 °C. Thus, even though the particles are less thermally stable than the cured resin, their degradation temperature is well above the glass transition temperature of the resin, and their use does not affect the thermal stability of the toughened materials at normal use temperatures.The performance of the toughening agents was compared using Ethacure‐100 as the hardener. The GM(47/15) and GM(47/37) toughening particles gave rise to a greater toughening effect than the ATP and the CTBN. For example, the fracture energies were: 0.26 kJ m−2 for the unmodified resin; 0.60 kJ m−2 for the resin toughened with CTBN; and 0.69 kJ m−2 for the resin toughened with the GM(47/15) particles. The ultimate tensile stress of the unmodified epoxy resin was 43 MPa, which increased to 55 MPa when 20 wt% of GM(47/15) toughening particles were added.The toughness of resins cured with the DX6509 hardener were superior to those obtained with the Ethacure‐100 hardener, most probably due to DX6509 producing a less‐highly‐crosslinked network. This highlights the sensitivity of the toughening process to the hardener used, even for hardeners of a similar nature.© 2001 Society of Chemical Industry