INFLUENCE OF SOME PARAMETERS ON THE SOLUTION OF A THERMAL-MODEL OF VULCANIZATION

The thermal behavior of a piece of rubber during a vulcanization proce ss is modelized by a set of two coupled differential equations. The fi rst one is a classical nonlinear heat equation while the second is a r eaction equation. The aim of this article is first to solve numericall y the two equations using a finite element procedure for the partial d ifferential equation and a Runge-Kutta like scheme for the reaction eq uation, and then to study the sensitivity of the solution to variation s in some parameters.