| Abstract: | Curing stresses in sheets of an epoxy polymer cured at 80°C, 120°C, and 135°C have been determined using the layer removal procedure. Tensile stresses were found to be present in the interior and compressive stresses near to the surface in all samples. Very low stresses were found to be present in material cured at 80°C, with a maximum compressive stress level close to 0.5 MN/m2 and a maximum tensile stress close to 0.25 MN/m2. Higher stress magnitudes were obtained when using higher curing temperatures, with values of more than 1 MN/m2 (compressive) and 0.6 MN/m2 (tensile) recorded for specimens cured at 135°C. |
