Abstract
A novel method of characterizing moisture effect on mechanical performance of epoxy resin is presented in this paper. A 50-µm-thick layer of cured epoxy resin was fabricated and cut into strips of 4 mm wide and 30 mm long as specimens to be tested on a dynamic mechanical analyzer equipped with thin-film tension clamp. Static tension and force-controlled tension–tension fatigue tests were first carried out using thin-film specimens made from Momentive 135/137 and BASF 5400/5440 epoxy resin systems without applying moisture, and results were compared with those obtained using conventional dog-bone specimens to validate the proposed testing method. Another batch of thin-film specimens were then immersed into deionized water, and the weight gain was recorded regularly until full saturation to obtain the absorption curve. Static and fatigue tests were performed using thin-film specimens made from BASF 5400/5440 with 55% and 100% saturation of moisture respectively, to evaluate moisture-induced material degradation. The aging effect on BASF 5400/5440 caused by cyclic water immersion and drying process was also assessed by performing static and fatigue tests using fully dried thin-film specimens after aging. It was concluded that the combination of thin-film specimen and dynamic mechanical analyzer would yield as good measurements of tensile strength and fatigue life as conventional dog-bone specimen does, and the small thickness of thin-film specimen would greatly reduce the time to reach a certain level of moisture content, facilitating further studies on effect of moisture ingression on polymeric matrix composites using multi-scale approaches.
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