Modeling coupled migration and settling of particulates in curing filled epoxies

Epoxy resins filled to a high solids loading (40–60% by volume) with noncolloidal particles are used to mitigate stress and vibration in electronic components. We perform continuum-level finite element method (Schunk et al., A Full-Newton Finite Element Program for Free and Moving Boundary Problems with Coupled Fluid/Solid Momentum, Energy, Mass, and Chemical Species Transport: User's Guide, Sandia National Laboratories) simulations of filler particle redistribution during the nonisothermal cure of the epoxy under both quiescent and bulk flow conditions. An extent of reaction is used to track the degree of cure. To determine the particle migration, we couple a diffusive flux suspension model (Zhang and Acrivos, Int J Multiphase Flow 1994, 20, 579.) with the curing model. The heat transfer, including the exothermic polymerization reaction, is also modeled. The result is a generalized Newtonian model that has viscosity as a function of temperature, cure and particle volume fraction. With x-ray computed tomography, we examine settling of the particulate phase in both flowing and quiescent curing systems and compare the experimental results to the model predictions. The model is also validated with temperature measurements. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011