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Abstract Infrared thermography is a non-destructive technique that can be exploited in many fields including polymer composite investigation. Based on emissivity and thermal diffusivity variation; components, defects, and curing state of the composite can be identified. However, manual processing of thermal images that may contain significant artifacts, is prone to erroneous component and property determination. In this study, thermal images of different graphite/graphene-based polymer composites fabricated by hand, planetary, and batch mixing techniques were analyzed through an automatic machine learning model. Filler size, shape, and location can be identified in polymer composites and thus, the dispersion of different samples was quantified with a resolution of ~ 20 µm despite having artifacts in the thermal image. Thermal diffusivity comparison of three mixing techniques was performed for 40% graphite in the elastomer. Batch mixing demonstrated superior dispersion than planetary and hand mixing as the dispersion index (DI) for batch mixing was 0.07 while planetary and hand mixing showed 0.0865 and 0.163 respectively. Curing was investigated for a polymer with different fillers (PDMS took 500 s while PDMS-Graphene and PDMS Graphite Powder took 800 s to cure), and a thermal characteristic curve was generated to compare the composite quality. Therefore, the above-mentioned methods with machine learning algorithms can be a great tool to analyze composite both quantitatively and qualitatively.
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Non-Destructive Infrared Thermographic Curing Analysis of Polymer Composites
Abstract Infrared (IR) thermography is a non-contact method of measuring temperature that analyzes the infrared radiation emitted by an object. Properties of polymer composites are heavily influenced by the filler material, filler size, and filler dispersion, and thus thermographic analysis can be a useful tool to determine the curing and filler dispersion. In this study, we investigated the curing mechanisms of polymer composites at the microscale by capturing real-time temperature using an IR Thermal Camera. Silicone polymers with fillers of Graphene, Graphite powder, Graphite flake, and Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) were subsequently poured into a customized 3D printed mold for thermography. The nanocomposites were microscopically heated with a Nichrome resistance wire, and real-time surface temperatures were measured using different Softwares. This infrared thermal camera divides the target area into 640 × 480 pixels, allowing measurement and analysis of the sample with a resolution of 65 micrometers. Depending on the filler material, the temperature rises to a certain maximum point before curing, and once curing is complete, polymer composites exhibit a rapid temperature change indicating a transition from viscous fluid to solid. MoS2, Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) without filler, and PDMS with larger filler are ranked in order of maximum constant temperature. PDMS (without filler) cures in 500s, while PDMS-Graphene and PDMS Graphite Powder cure in about 800s. The curing time for PDMS Graphite flake is slightly longer (950s), while MoS2 is around 520s. Therefore, this technique can indicate the influence of fillers on the curing of composites at the microscale, which is difficult to achieve by conventional methods such as differential scanning calorimetry. This nondestructive, low-cost, fast infrared thermography can be used to analyze the properties of polymer composites with different fillers and dispersion qualities in a variety of applications including precision additive manufacturing and quality control of curable composite inks.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2138574
- PAR ID:
- 10484614
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Society of Mechanical Engineers
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 978-0-7918-8665-6
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Columbus, Ohio, USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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