Investigating effects on epoxy adhesive

[unscientific]

Hi, I am currently doing a scientific research regarding epoxy adhesive.

Basically, you shine UV light onto the adhesive, it hardens.

Im given certain parameters like, intensity of UV light and duration of exposure.

I am supposed to investigate effects of varying parameters on: adhesion, cohesive strength and other properties.

So far I did some research, the effects that I could investigate on are: Tensile at break(eg 8900 psi), Durameter hardness (eg D75), shrinkage percentage, % elongation at break and adhesive strength (eg 1000Pa).

I would like comments/suggestions on working on this project with these, or maybe add new parameters?

What I have in mind is plotting a graph of Intensity against adhesive strength under a fixed exposure time, while recording the tensile at break, durometer hardness etc.

Any improvements/suggestions?

 

[chemisttree]

You might include temperature of the cure phase and the length of time and temperature of post cure phase.

Are you able to change the concentration of the cure agent?

 

[Danger]

How about humidity during cure, or maybe even the presence of liquids?

 

[unscientific]

Ok, basically I am working in a lab that has limited equipment, several machines i found are the uv machine, which allows one to set the intensity, and duration (mins/hrs). There is also a durometer, (i haven't actually seen it) but my mentor tells me it does a "Sweeping" action at a force, while plotting a graph. I intend to maybe put cured adhesive (a droplet) onto a substrate and measure at which point willl the cured resin actually "break". Now I am currently working on the linear shrinkage, where I inject epoxy into a capillary tube and measure the length before the cure and after the cure. I think I will vary the duration of exposure to UV, and record plot a graph of %linear shrinkage over time of exposure.
What do you guys think? (3 more weeks till the end of the project)