SIMULATION OF THE CURING PROCESS OF AN UNSATURATED POLYESTER RESIN INADIABATIC CONDITIONS

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.