Measurement of Interfacial Adhesion in Glass-Epoxy Systems Using the Indentation Method
The adhesion of coatings often controls the performance of the substrate-coating system. Certain engineering applications require an epoxy coating on a brittle substrate to protect and improve the performance of the substrate. Experimental observations and measurements of interfacial adhesion in glass-epoxy systems are described in this thesis. The Oliver and Pharr method was utilized to calculate the bulk epoxy hardness and elastic modulus. Spherical indentations were used to induce delaminations at the substrate-coating interface. The delamination sizes as a function of load were used to calculate the interfacial toughness. The interfacial fracture energy of my samples is an order of magnitude higher than a previous group who studied a similar glass-epoxy system. A comparison study of how different glass treatments affect adhesion was also conducted: smooth versus rough, clean versus dirty, stressed versus non-stressed.