Investigation of residual stress in epoxy-based coatings using X-ray and FEM-ANN techniques

Residual stresses play a significant role in the properties and performance of epoxy-based coatings, with their origins rooted in various factors encountered during production and application. This study focuses on quantifying residual stresses in three distinct epoxy-based coatings, commonly used as linings for crude oil storage tanks, namely, pure epoxy, Novolac epoxy, and glass-flake-reinforced epoxy. We employ X-ray diffraction to measure these residual stresses and compare them against predicted values obtained through finite element and artificial neural network methods. Our findings reveal notable differences in residual stresses among the three types of epoxy coatings. Specifically, pure epoxy coatings exhibit higher residual stresses, Novolac epoxy coatings display the lowest, and those reinforced with glass flakes fall in between. Utilising the FEM-ANN model for simulations yields results that closely align with experimental measurements obtained via the X-ray method. Test results demonstrate that the coatings cured at high temperatures have high residual stresses compared to those cured at lower temperatures. Increasing the curing temperature from 10 to 50oC will increase residual stresses by 40.81, 11.085, and 56.98% for coatings reinforced with glass-flake, Novolac, and pure epoxy-based coating, respectively.