ON THE DETERMINATION OF NUCLEATION AND GROWTH-KINETICS BY CALORIMETRY

The Johnson-Mehl-Avrami (JMA) theory for nucleation and growth transfo rmations is applied to isothermal and non-isothermal conditions as fre quently used in differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) experiments. A model is derived with three kinetic parameters: activation energy, tr ansformation order, and frequency factor. Analytical expressions are d eveloped for the DSC heat-flow evolution as a function of time or temp erature for both isothermal as well as constant heating rate condition s. They provide a variety of methods for the determination of the thre e kinetic parameters by fits to experimental DSC curves. The potential of the proposed model is demonstrated using the example of solid-stat e reactions in a Ti-Al multilayer thin film.