Material Characterization of Silica Particle-Unsaturated Polyester Resin Composite and Residual Stress Analysis

Abstract

A method to characterize the time-cure-temperature dependent viscoelastic properties of silica particle and unsaturated polyester resin composite was developed in this work, which was applied for the engineered stone. As for the characterization of the cure kinetics of composite, DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimeter) was utilized for the unsaturated polyester under the isothermal and dynamic conditions. As for the characterization of mechanical properties of composite material, DMA (Dynamic Mechanical Analysis) was utilized for the shear relaxation modulus of fully cured composite. With the measured mechanical properties of the fully cured composite material, dependency on the degree of curing was characterized based on the numerical inverse characterization method using warpage induced test under the non-symmetric curing conditions. To analyze the residual stress incurred under the process conditions, parametric study utilizing numerical simulation was conducted for the curing, cooling and cutting processes.