The effect of the heat treatment on the crosslinking of epoxy resin for aviation applications

We have investigated the MGS L285 epoxy laminating resin system, used in aviation applications. A number of tests were carried out, namely Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), tensile testing, three-point bending flexural testing, Charpy impact testing, Shore D hardness, density measurements and Fourier-Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Moreover, the tensile toughness U-TT, the brittleness B and the linear isobaric thermal expansivity alpha(L) were calculated. The samples were subjected to heat treatment in the temperatures of 50, 60 and 80 degrees C for 15 hours or were stored in room temperature. Glass transition temperature, hardness, density as well as other properties were observed to rise along with the increasing heat treatment temperature, suggesting the validity of applications of Voronoi-Delaunay structural analysis to polymer science. On the other hand, properties such as brittleness, toughness and impact strength exhibited a non-linear course of changes as a function of the heating temperature.