Jm. Salla et Jl. Martin, SIMULATION OF THE CURING PROCESS OF AN UNSATURATED POLYESTER RESIN INADIABATIC CONDITIONS, Journal of thermal analysis, 42(5), 1994, pp. 1025-1040
The exothermal process of curing of thermoset resins in adiabatic cond
itions cannot be monitored by differential thermal analysis techniques
such as DSC. Starting from the specific reaction rate, heat capacity
as function of the temperature and the heat of reaction at some refere
nce temperature, it is possible to design any adiabatic operation. In
this paper we apply the energy balance to the curing process in adiaba
tic conditions and solve the basic rate law for the two empirical kine
tic functions f(alpha) usually used: n(th)-order kinetics [f(alpha)=(1
-alpha)(n)], and autocatalytic kinetics [f(alpha)=alpha(m)(1-alpha)(n)
], where alpha is the degree of conversion and n and m the reaction or
ders, in order to obtain the heat generation curve (dH/dt) as a functi
on of time, as well as the change of temperature with time, the explos
ion time, the maximum adiabatic temperature and the rate of reaction a
s a function of the degree of conversion.