Measurement and prediction of the glass transition temperature during processing of copper‐clad epoxy resin systems

Abstract The determination of the glass transition temperature of a cured resin system is necessary for the classification of the temperature region of usable service. For the printed circuit board industry, accurate and consistent properties of the copperclad laminates that are used as the substrate are essential. Variations in material properties of the finished laminates may become a hindrance in subsequent steps in the manufacturing of printed circuit boards and more importantly in the failure rate of the boards during service. In this research, a one‐dimensional finite difference method has been implemented with constitutive models to simulate the progression of the degree of cure and glass transition temperature during the processing of copper‐clad, multi‐layered, fiber mat reinforced, epoxy laminates. The numerical results have been compared to experimental measurements and it has been found that the simulation predicts the experimental observations quite well.