REDUCED TIME APPROACH TO CURING KINETICS .1. DYNAMIC RATE AND MASTER CURVE FROM ISOTHERMAL DATA

A reduced time approach has been used to predict nonisothermal curing kinetics based on isothermal kinetic data. This approach makes it clear that the conversion in a kinetic process is a function of the reduced time alone and allows for the construction of a master curve from isothermal kinetic data, indicating that the dynamic (or nonisothermal) rate is equal to the isothermal rate. The approach can be applied to curing, crystallization, and other physico-chemical kinetics. A method is also described for correcting the nonisothermal curing kinetic data obtained from differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) for a temperature lag between the sample and the DSC furnace. For two rubber compounds, it has been found that the nonisothermal curing kinetic data corrected for this temperature lag are in better agreement with the predictions based on isothermal kinetics than the uncorrected data.