Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering , 10, 341--358, 2002
Macroscopic properties of thermosetting polymers are strongly affected by thermal degradation. However, modelling the dynamics of thermal degradation is difficult due to an intrinsic coupling between reaction kinetics and heat transfer in polymeric materials. In this paper we consider mathematical models for degradation focusing on thermal degradation and shrinkage phenomena. We discuss in detail a mathematical model that allows modelling thermal degradation as a coupled process and develop an efficient procedure for numerical studies of this process. The developed procedure is then applied to modelling degradation of acrylic resins widely used in chemical biomedical engineering. Results of numerical experiments are presented.
