Polymer Engineering and Science, Vol.41, No.3, 484-491, 2001
Transport modeling and thermophysical properties of cellular poly(urethane-isocyanurate)
Transport behavior, thermophysical properties and reaction kinetics of cellular poly(urethane-isocyanurate) were investigated. The heat and momentum transport of the flowing and reacting polymer system was modeled using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. Two models were developed and compared with the experimental results in order to provide insight into the optimum processing. The models allowed prediction of the temperature profiles under a variety of operating conditions. The model prediction of momentum and heat transport agreed with the experimental results well. The thermophysical properties of the polymer system were obtained from experimental data and were used in the transport model. These properties included heat capacity and thermal conductivity. Reaction kinetics were investigated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The rate constant, activation energy and heat of reaction and the rate constant were obtained from the experimental data.