Studies of epoxy resin systems: Part A: A study of the origins of the secondary relaxations of epoxy resins by thermally stimulated depolarization

The relaxation behavior of several epoxy resin systems, which have systematic structural differences, has been studied by the thermally stimulated discharge (TSD) technique. Two TSD peaks centered at about 115°K (β peak) and 185°K (β peak) were found for epoxy resins cured with a diamine. Structural change, either in the epoxy resin molecule or the amine molecule, did not seem to affect those two peaks. The TSD thermogram of the DGEBA (diglycidyl ether of disphenol A) epoxy resin part only showed a small new peak at 160°K instead of the ft peak at 185°K. This result, together with the fact that postcuring increased β peak height, leads to the conclusion that the ft peak is most likely due to the newly‐created molecular segment during the curing reaction. The peak at 160°K was assigned to the epoxy group. This assignment was based on the fact that the 160°K peak of an epoxy homopolymer, which has fewer epoxy groups, was smaller than that of the parent DGEBA. The β and γ peaks were found to be of distributed characteristics, and the distribution of activation energy was studied by the partial heating method.