| Abstract: | Optical microscopy with ultra-violet illumination has been used to monitor the curing reactions and final structure of an amine-cured epoxy resin system. When low concentrations of u.v. absorbing additive are added to the resin before curing, the additive is usually completely uniformly distributed in the cured product. No density variations on a scale resolvable in optical microscopy are visible. Similarly when a u.v. absorbing eragent is allowed to diffuse into the cured resin its diffusion profile is normal and shows no detectable density fluctuations in the resin. Reaction of cured resins with a reagent which couples with amino groups to give u.v. absorbing adducts shows that conventional hand mixing techniques do not produce complete mixing of the resin components and spatially non-uniform concentrations of unreacted amines are found. This effect can only be removed by unusually thorough mixing techniques. Use of a water soluble u.v. absorber allows penetration of the epoxy by water to be followed. In particular, the penetration of fibre-matrix interfaces by water can be visualised. |
