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Hygrothermal aging at elevated temperatures tends to induce degradation in epoxy resins. To predict the effects of this degradation, a knowledge of absorption and transport behavior of water is needed. In this work, a model material (DGEBA/DDA) has been employed to study the water absorption and absorption/desorption behavior during hygrothermal aging at 90°C, accompanied by degradation. The absorption results show an weight increase during the initial aging period followed by a decrease at later times. Absorption/desorption results show a similar phenomenon but with a net, overall weight loss after a certain period of aging. By assuming that water diffusion is approximately Fickian and that degradation of the resin is mainly caused by hydrolysis reactions, a model has been developed to describe the above-observed phenomena. Results show that the model is in good agreement with experimental data. Moreover, the model proposed can be used to estimate the average molecular weight of the intercrosslink chains after aging. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci B: Polym Phys 35: 2659–2670, 1997
Xiao et al. (1997) studied this question.