Nano-scale image of epoxy adhesive.
Dong Quan, whos is working on a PhD under Prof. Alojz Ivankovic , attended the "Adhesion Society 38th Annual Meeting" in February, in Savannah, GA, USA, and won the Peebles Award for Graduate Student Research. His paper was titled "Damage behavior of core shell rubber particles toughened epoxy adhesives using J-CDNT test".
Epoxy polymers are widely used in automotive and aerospace industries due to the prominent engineering properties, such as high modulus, high strength, low creep and excellent thermal stability. However, the highly cross-linked structure also gives shortcomings, such as the inherently low fracture toughness and poor resistance to fracture. My project is about toughening the automotive epoxy adhesives using CSR nanoparticles to improve the fracture toughness. The fracture behavior and toughening mechanisms are also investigated. The project is funded by Henkel.
The aims are to fully understand the fracture behavior of CSR-modified epoxy adhesives and to obtain an optimum fracture toughness of adhesives without sacrificing other critical properties too much.