Combined experimental and simulation study of the cure kinetics of DCPD

In this study, the cure kinetics of dicyclopentadiene was investigated using a combination of inelastic light scattering measurements and molecular-scale simulations. Concurrent Brillouin and Raman scattering served to monitor the structural evolution of the curing network as a function of time, both in terms of network connectivity and the concentration of chemical species present. Density functional theory calculations were used to interpret the measured Raman spectra. Comparison of the measured elastic moduli as a function of the degree of cure with those of structures generated using reactive molecular dynamics simulations provides insight into the reaction mechanism. An unexpected dependence of the reaction rate on the catalyst concentration was found.