Effects of Reactive Diluents on the Electrical Insulation Breakdown Strength and Mechanical Properties in an Epoxy System

In order to study the effect of reactive diluents on the electrical insulation breakdown strength and mechanical properties of, a polyglycol and an aliphatic epoxy were individually introduced to an epoxy system. Reactive diluents were used in order to decrease the viscosity of the epoxy system; polyglycol acted as a flexibilizer and 1,4-butanediol diglycidyl ether (BDGE) acted as an aliphatic epoxy, which then acted as a chain extender after curing reaction. The ac electrical breakdown strength was estimated in sphere-to-sphere electrodes and the electrical breakdown strength was estimated by Weibull statistical analysis. The scale parameters of the electrical breakdown strengths for the epoxy resin, epoxy-polyglycol, and epoxy-BDGE were 45.0, 46.2, and 45.1 kV/mm, respectively. The flexural and tensile strengths for epoxy-BDGE were lower than those of the epoxy resin and those for epoxy-polyglycol were lower than those of the epoxy resin.