Real-time cure monitoring of an epoxy/polyamidoamine system with unilateral magnetic resonance

The cure of an epoxy resin/polyamidoamine hardener system was followed in real-time by magnetic resonance (MR) with a purpose-built portable probe that was designed with a magnet array and a radio-frequency coil geometry that maximize its sensitivity. The MR results demonstrated that the effects of cross-linking during the cure are manifest in changes in the experimental signal amplitude and decay time constant. The results also showed that, with a proper MR spin echo technique, it is possible to acquire knowledge about the evolution of the epoxy cross-linking process in a single scan measurement which takes less than one second.