The PhD Defense will take place next Monday, April 3rd, at 11:00 am, in the room “Puig Adam” of the Industrial Engineering, School of UPM (c/José Gutiérrez Abascal, 2)

 

ABSTRACT

Epoxy resins are widely applied in transportation, aerospace, electrical and electronic (EE) industrial sectors due to their excellent properties, such as mechanical strength, chemical and heat resistance, adhesiveness and electrical insulation. Nevertheless, flammability is one paramount disadvantage of epoxy-based materials in most applications.

As a result of the current concern for the environment and the human health, halogen-free phosphorous-containing flame retardants (P-FRs) is considered to be one of the most promising choice to enhance the fire resistance of epoxy materials for industrial applications. Within this context, this doctoral thesis focused on investigating the impacts of P’ chemical environment in the P-FRs’ structure on flame-retardant efficiency and mechanism in epoxy. High flame-retardant epoxies were developed via tuning the P’ chemical environment in the P-FRs’ structure without scarifying the mechanical properties of epoxy. The flame-retardant mechanisms of P-FRs with varied P’ chemical environment were proposed and compared in a same epoxy system. In addition, flame-retardant RTM 6/carbon fiber reinforced composites (CFR) were successfully developed by blending synthesized P-FRs via resin transfer molding technology without influencing the mechanical and viscosity properties of CFR.