Cure kinetics modeling of epoxy resins using a non-parametric numerical procedure

The paper presents the development of a novel non-parametric procedure for modeling of the chemical cure kinetics of a commercial resin-transfer-molding epoxy resin, RTM6. The procedure is entirely numerical and involves interpolation between experimentally determined values of cure reaction rates. The base data are obtained by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). The newly developed procedure is set against a background overview of other cure kinetics modeling approaches. It is shown that the numerical procedure can achieve a satisfactory level of accuracy in describing the progress of cure in this resin system. The important advantage, compared with other techniques, is that no information on the chemical nature of the process is required.