Método ultrassônico para avaliação da viscosidade e do coeficiente de compressibilidade durante o processo de cura de resinas

Abstract

During the curing process, i.e. crosslinking process, resins suffer significant and irreversible changes on theirs chemical and physical properties, as the alterations in the compressibility coefficient (the inverse of bulk modulus) and in the viscosity. The changes in these properties along a direction inside of a resin, under a curing process, can be estimated with techniques based on pulse-echo ultrasonic waves. With these techniques is possible to obtain the ultrasonic wave speed and the attenuation imposed on the wave by a resin under curing. Before the cure, resins have speeds of wave propagation between 1600 and 1800 m/s, low attenuation and low viscosity. As the curing process evolves, there is a remarkable increase of viscosity, which causes great attenuations. After that, and until the end of the curing process, the viscosity and the attenuation decrease. After the cure and solidification, the wave speed may reach values up to 2500 m/s. Since the density almost does not vary during the cure, the changes in wave speed can be attributed to changes in the resin s bulk modulus. The pulse-echo method, described in this dissertation, allows the monitoring, in a no invasive way, of the variation of the bulk modulus and the changes in viscosity along a direction of propagation of an ultrasonic wave, during the curing process of an epoxy resin.