Rapid and Reliable State of Cure Determinations of Elastomeric Seals

The objective of this paper is to show that once a baseline of control data is established, a glass transition performed with a DSC will indicate the state of cure of an elastomeric sealing material.

The DSC, or Differential Scanning Calorimeter, uses a microsample as compared to more traditional methods of measuring the state of cure. For traditional methods both ASTM slabs and buttons must be submitted for physical testing to determine if the material is properly cured and of the same quality as expected. Utilizing a DSC it is possible to take an elastomeric seal at random and determine If that lot of seals is properly cured within less than an hour as opposed to traditional methods which can take up to three days.