As the first step of a wide range of investigations to establish the most adequate curing condition for the most favorable resin finished fabrics, an investigation was carried out to observe the hardening behavior of resins in the thermosetting process.
Torsional Braid Analysis method was applied to observe the viscoelastic behavior to know how the thermosetting proceeded with time at curing temperatures.
Torsionsl rigidity was obtained every 1-2 minutes until it reached the maximum value, from which the time required for sufficient hardening, thermosetting rate constant and apparent activation energy were calculated for resins of melamine, urea and glyoxal types to compare each other. The main results are as follows
1. Among resins of three types, a resin of melamine type showed the lowest thermosetting rate constant and the highest apparent activation energy, while that of glyoxal type showed the highest thermosetting rate constant and the lowest apparent activation energy.
2. It was found that the resins might be only 30-50 % cured under the conventional curing condition for the practical resin finishing process, e.g., curing for 5 minutes at 150°or for 1-2 minutes at 180°C.
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