Simulation of the curing process of an unsaturated polyester resin in adiabatic conditions

The exothermal process of curing of thermoset resins in adiabatic conditions 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 reference temperature, it is possible to design any adiabatic operation. In this paper we apply the energy balance to the curing process in adiabatic conditions and solve the basic rate law for the two empirical kinetic functionsf(α) usually used:n ^th-order kinetics [f(α)=(1?α)ⁿ], and autocatalytic kinetics [f(α)=α^m(1?α)ⁿ], where α is the degree of conversion andn andm the reaction orders, in order to obtain the heat generation curve (dH/dt) as a function of time, as well as the change of temperature with time, the explosion time, the maximum adiabatic temperature and the rate of reaction as a function of the degree of conversion.