Studies on Cure Behavior and Thermal Stability of Epoxy/PMR-15 Polyimide Blend System

에폭시/PMR-15 폴리이미드 블렌드계의 경화동력학 및 열안정성에 관한 연구

In this work, the blend system of epoxy and PMR-15 polyimide is investigated in terms of the cure behaviors and thermal stabilities. The cure behaviors are studied in DSC measurements and thermal stabilities are also carried out by TGA analysis. DDM (4, 4'-diamino diphenyl methane) is used as curing agent for EP and the content of PMR-15 is varied within 0, 5, 10, 35, and 20 phr to neat EP. As a result, the cure activation energy ($E_a$) is increased at 10 phr of PMR-15, compared with that of neat EP. From the TGA results of EP/PMR-15 blend system, the thermal stabilities based in the initial decomposed temperature (IDT) and integral procedural decomposition temperature (IPDT) are increased with increasing the PMR-15 content. The fracture toughness, measured in the context of critical stress intensity factor ($K_{IC}$) and critical strain energy release rate ($G_{IC}$), shows a similar behavior with $E_a$. This result is probably due to the crosslinking developed by the interactions between intermolecules in the polymer chains.