Influence of polyamide powders to epoxy resins : Effective crack propagation resistance enhancement and toughness improvement in thermoset coatings

The purpose of this study is to review the influence of adding eight different grades of ultra fine microporous polyamide (PA) thermoplastic particles to different epoxy resins by summarizing the studies conducted to date. Thermomechanical and dynamic mechanical analysis showed that the reactivity of these different epoxy systems was not affected by the introduction of the PA particles, independently of their chemkal nature. Concerning the mechanical properties, the introduction of PA powders had no influence on the elastic behavior of the reinforced networks, but the authors observed an increase of the critical stress intensity factor K IC .