  Epoxy resins are widely used polymer matrices for numerous applications.
Despite substantial advances, the molecular-level knowledge-base required to
exploit these materials to their full potential remains limited. A deeper
comprehension of structure/property relationships in epoxy resins at the
molecular level is critical to progressing these efforts. It can be laborious,
if not impractical, to elucidate these relationships based on experiments
alone. Here, molecular dynamics simulations are used to calculate and compare
thermal conductivities and mechanical properties of an exemplar epoxy resin,
Bisphenol F cross-linked with Diethyl Toluene Diamine, revealing these
inter-relationships. Both elastic modulus and thermal transport of the epoxy
resin show an increase with greater cross-linking. Specifically, decomposition
of the thermal conductivity into different force contributions suggests that
the bonded term contributes to an increase in the heat flux. These outcomes
provide a foundation for designing and fabricating customized epoxy resins with
desirable thermal and mechanical attributes.
