Addition of a reactive diluent to a catalyzed epoxy-anhydride system. II. effect on enthalpy relaxation

Enthalpy relaxation in an epoxy resin based on diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) with a reactive diluent cured with methyl-tetrahydrophthalic anhydride (MTHPA) with an accelerator was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry. The reactive diluent (RD) added was an aliphatic diglycidyl ether which was mixed in a proportion of 50 parts by weight (pbw) per 100 parts of DGEBA, with the stoichiometric quantity of MTHPA. The key parameters of the enthalpy relaxation investigated were the nonlinearity parameter, x, the apparent activation energy,Δh^*, and the nonexponentiality parameter, β. The results were compared with other data obtained previously in similar epoxy-anhydride systems without an RD but with different degrees of conversion in order to analyze the effects of (a) the introduction of aliphatic chains of the RD in the epoxy structure and (b) a reduction in the crosslink density of the resin. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.