Modeling of Curing Reaction Kinetics in Liquid-Crystalline Epoxy Resins

The curing kinetics of an epoxy stoichiometrically equivalent mixture of 4,4'-(diglycidyloxy)-α-methylstilbene and 2,4-diaminotoluene has been determined experimentally. A liquid-crystalline phase has been observed to form during the curing reaction. A phenomenological model of the system is developed, and with parameter values extracted from the data by fitting of separate parts of the DSC curve, the model equations fit the measured data over a wide range of temperatures