Chemorheology of poly(urethane/isocyanurate) formation

Poly(urethane/isocyanurate) is a major resin used in the structural reaction injection molding (SRIM) process. In this study, the kinetics and viscosity changes of a poly(urethane/isocyanurate) resin were investigated by the adiabatic temperature/viscosity rise method and differential scanning calorimetry, The effect of the catalyst concentration and the volume ratio of isocyanate to polyol was investigated. It is found that isocyanate trimerization depends on the diffusion effect resulted from the urethane formation. A kinetic model including the diffusion effect is developed, which is able to predict the experimental results. The reaction induced viscosity rise depends on the concentration and the molecular weight of the formed polymer. The measured adiabatic viscosity rise correlates well with the calculated molecular weight growth using the recursive method.