Jie Xu^1,3, Jiayao Yang¹, Peng Lin², Xiaohuan Liu^1,*, Jinjie Zhang¹, Shenyuan Fu^1,*, Yuxun Tang^2,*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.7, No.12, pp. 1333-1346, 2019, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2019.07905

Abstract It is essential to design economic and efficient tougheners to prepare high-performance epoxy resin; however, this has remained a huge challenge. Herein, an eco-friendly, low-cost, and facile-fabricated bio-based hyperbranched toughener, carboxylic acid-functionalized tannic acid (CATA), was successfully prepared and applicated to the preparation of solvent-free epoxy resins. The mechanical performance, morphology, structural characterization, and thermal characterization of toughened epoxy resin system were studied. The toughened epoxy resin system with only 1.0wt% CATA reached the highest impact strength, 111% higher than the neat epoxy resin system. Notably, the tensile strength and elongation at break of toughened epoxy resin systems increased moderately… More >

Puyou Jia¹, Fei Song¹, Qiaoguang Li^2,*, Haoyu Xia³, Mei Li^1,*, Xugang Shu², Yonghong Zhou¹

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.7, No.7, pp. 601-619, 2019, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2019.07011

Abstract Polymers from renewable resources are receiving tremendous attention due to the increasing concerns on the depletion of fossil oils and deteriorated environments. Cardanol, as an abundant and renewable chemical raw material, has been widely used for the production of renewable polymer materials via converting into various of chemical monomers with active functional groups. This comprehensive review deals with various aspects of cardanol as a starting material the preparing various polymer and polymer composites such as benzoxazine resins, phenolic resin, polyurethanes, epoxy resin, vinyl ester polymers, polyamide and cyanate ester resins. The assessment of the future prospects for the use of… More >

A. Sammaiah¹, K. V. Padmaja¹, K. I. Suresh^*,2, R. B. N. Prasad¹

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.4, No.2, pp. 113-122, 2016, DOI:10.7569/JRM.2015.634118

Abstract This article reports the effect of epoxidized jatropha oil (EJO) on the thermal, cure and viscoelastic properties of epoxy resins. Epoxidized jatropha oil with an oxirane value of 5.0 was prepared and epoxy formulations containing different concentrations of EJO were evaluated for cure, morphology, thermal and viscoelastic properties. The curing temperature of the formulations increased with increasing EJO content. The glass transition temperature of the cured films decreased from 56 °C for unmodified epoxy resin to 23 °C for the sample with 60 wt% EJO reactive diluent, suggesting good plasticizing action. The thermal decomposition was only marginally affected. More >

D.S. Liu^1,2, Z.H. Fong¹, I.H. Lin¹, Z.W. Zhuang¹

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.93, No.6, pp. 441-468, 2013, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2013.093.441

Abstract In this study, we proposed a novel numerical technique to simulate the transient moisture diffusion process and to apply it to heterogeneous composite resins. The method is based on a heterogeneous hybrid moisture element (HHME), with properties determined through an equivalent hybrid moisture capacitance/ conductance matrix that was calculated using the conventional finite element formulation in space discretization and the q-method in time discretization, with similar mass/stiffness properties and matrix condensing operations. A coupled HHME with finite element scheme was developed and implemented in the computer code by using the commercial software MATLAB to analyze the transient moisture diffusion process… More >

De-Shin Liu¹, Zhen-Wei Zhuang^1,2, Cho-LiangChung³, Ching-Yang Chen⁴

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.13, No.2, pp. 89-114, 2009, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2009.013.089

Abstract This paper employs a novel numerical technique, designated as the hybrid moisture element method (HMEM), to model and analyze moisture diffusion in a heterogeneous epoxy resin containing multiple randomly distributed particles. The HMEM scheme is based on a hybrid moisture element (HME), whose properties are determined by equivalent moisture capacitance and conductance matrixes calculated using the conventional finite element formulation. A coupled HME-FE scheme is developed and implemented using the commercial FEM software ABAQUS. The HME-FE scheme is then employed to analyze the moisture diffusion characteristics of a heterogeneous epoxy resin layer containing particle inclusions. The analysis commences by comparing… More >