Abstract
The corrosion behavior was investigated on an alumina filled bisphenol A type epoxy resin. Specimens were immersed in an alkaline solution for examining the effects of alumina content and particle size on the corrosion behavior. While the neat resin did not show any significant change in the retention of flexural strength, the alumina filled resin obviously decreased the retention. The corrosion depth linearly increased with immersion time. The corrosion rate, defined as the slope of the corrosion depth per unit time of immersion, was strongly affected by the volume fraction of alumina contained; on the other hand, was a little affected by the effect of average particle size. The cause of the increase in corrosion rate with alumina content was clarified by a microscopic investigation as follows : the alkaline solution penetrating into the specimen corroded it through passing along the surface of particles. The chemical degradation model was proposed in order to obtain the corrosion rate for an arbitrary alumina content of a composite.
