Evaluation of silicone sealant cure characteristics using a fabricated parallel plate rheometer
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Date
2018-05
Authors
Wan Abdur Rahman Wan Mohd Amin
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Abstract
The cure characteristics of a silicone sealant are important to the consumers in the
construction industry as it contains useful information to ensure the sealants will not fail
during its service applications. In this study, three types of Room Temperature
Vulcanization (RTV) silicone sealants were used to study its cure characteristics using a
fabricated parallel plate rheometer and commercial Anton Paar rheometer. The effects
of curing system, temperature, oscillation frequency, and gap height were investigated.
The measurement data obtained from the fabricated parallel plate rheometer, which are
electrical current and angular speed were evaluated to yield the cure characteristics
curve which consists of induction, curing and over cure regions. The curve was a plot of
torque versus time at a constant temperature to show the progression of a crosslinking
process with time. Based on the cure characteristics analysis, softening time and tack-free time were obtained. Softening time was the time where the sealant had the good
flow properties that can be best applied by any mechanical means. Meanwhile, the tack-free time was the time taken before the sealant resisted damage by any contacts. Based on the results obtained, fabricated parallel plate rheometer was able to describe the
curing characteristics of the studied parameters satisfactorily. It showed that the curing
characteristics analysis could provide a good platform to investigate the softening and
tack-free time of the silicone sealants