Just wondering if anyone is familiar with any techniques that can identify what resin is in a cured product? For example, identification of polyester, epoxy or vinyl-ester. In practice, I know it can be normally done by smell for example or you just have a good idea of what it is, but in terms of repeatable detection for operators in the field and for having a quantified method, is there a cheap, reliable solution that anyone has used?
Thanks v much
Send a sample to a materials lab. They can tell you if it’s epoxy, ve, etc…, if it’s fully cured, what the TG is, vf, and just about anything you want to know. The can even give you a sectioned view with a scanning electron microscope. It all runs around $500-600 where I get it done locally.
An obvious one is to check what the reinforcement is. If its CSM, youre almost 100% sure its going to be UP or VE.
You can try rubbing a bit of acetone on it. Epoxy should be quite resistant to it. UP or VE could go tacky, depending on how old it is.
If you apply heat, most epoxies will gel or become flexible, even liquid. UP or VE will just burn or smoke.
Of course certain resins are manufactured for different purposes, some are more resistant to chemical attack or temperature than others. You could have a VE that will behave like an epoxy, or an epoxy that wasn’t mixed properly that will behave like a polyester.
To answer your question. No, there is no way of knowing in the field what type of resin has been used, other than to smell the laminate, by either sanding or burning the laminate. Determining what type of UP or what type of VE is impossible in the field. Laboratory work is the only way to determine the differences in UP’s i.e. orthophthalic, isophthalic, terephthalic etc and the same again with VE’s and the different grades that are available in that range.
Thanks - yeah thats what I was thinking, all just seems to be take a sample, send it to the lab etc.Ah well, worth a try, cheers folks!