Mechanical Properties of DGEBA/Amidoamine Blend at Non-Stoichiometric Ratios

Abstract

In this paper, the effect of varying mixing ratio of Diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA)/aliphatic amidoamine hardener on the behavior of dynamic cure profile and mechanical properties of the resulting thermoset was investigated. Epoxy/hardener sample with a stoichiometric mixing ratio of 2:1 are tested against non-stoichiometric ratios of 3:1 and 4:1. The tensile, flexural, and hardness properties of the specimens were measured while SEM is employed to investigate the fracture surface and analyze the failure. Results showed that epoxy enriched samples (non-stoichiometric) has a much brittle behavior and the DGEBA/hardener samples tend to fail under relatively small strain.