interaction of viscosity and curing kinetics of epoxy resin in the presence of nanosilica particles

Knowing of thermoset curing kinetics and viscosity is essential for process development, quality control, and achieving desirable products# hence, in this article, viscosity profile of an epon 828 epoxy resin/dicyandiamide curing agent/diuron accelerator system is investigated# this resin system is usually used for the production of epoxy/glass fiber prepregs used in wind turbine blades# for this, dsc analysis is used and the effect of temperature, weight percentage, and size of nanosilica is studied by conducting isothermal tests at several temperatures for samples with and without nanoparticles# an autocatalytic curing model is applied to describe the cure kinetic of system#the presence of nanoparticles affects the viscosity by three mechanisms: polymer-filler interactions that change the glass transition temperature, the influence on the curing kinetics and the hydrodynamic properties at the finally, the impact of each of these cases on viscosity at the proposed model is examined# the results indicate that the proposed model can be modeled slightly ahead of the castro model#