Composite cure kinetic analysis of unsaturated polyester free radical polymerization

Curing kinetics of unsaturated polyester resin system exhibiting apparent induction periods was investigated by modeling free radical initiation and propagation processes. The isothermal curing induction time as well as the maximum-rate time provided the same activation energy in the Arrhenius relation, and therefore, the isothermal curing master curve was constructed by using the reduced time method. Two model elementary rate equations for radical and monomer were proposed to describe the free radical polymerization of unsaturated polyester resin systems. The power law was adopted to express the conversion dependence function of the initiation efficiency and the monomer reaction rate. Demonstrating the capability of the developed model, the agreement between experimental and predicted data was excellent in both isothermal and dynamic-heating conditions, even with the same model parameters in different thermal conditions. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.