Combined experimental and simulation study of the cure kinetics of DCPD

Abstract

The cure kinetics of dicyclopentadiene was investigated using a combination of inelastic light scattering measurements and molecular-scale simulations. Concurrent Brillouin and Raman scattering served to monitor the structural evolution of the curing network as a function of time, both in terms of network connectivity and the concentration of chemical species present. Density functional theory calculations were used to interpret the measured Raman spectra. Comparison of the measured elastic moduli as a function of the degree of cure with those of structures generated using reactive molecular dynamics simulations provide insight into the reaction mechanism. An unexpected dependence of the reaction rate on the catalyst concentration was found.

Comparison of Different Cure Monitoring Techniques

“…One is the direct optical measurement of reaction properties by means of spectral absorption of the main reaction components. These properties are utilised by the Raman spectroscopy [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ]. The other methods exploit the change in the refractive index and are rather unusual [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ].…”

Mechanical behavior of epoxy systems using microencapsulated amino-functional siloxanes

“…These experiments were successful and opened the way for many other works, with further technical development. For example, smaller capsule sizes [8], use of other groups of catalysts [9,10], alternative curing systems [11] and other encapsulating materials [12,13]. The storage form of curing agents has been also the subject of many researches [4,7,13].…”