The kinetics of nonisothermal crystallization of three different types of linear aromatic polyester, namely poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), poly(trimethylene terephthalate) (PTT), and poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT), which are different in their number of methylene groups (i.e. 2, 3, and 4 for PET, PTT, and PBT, respectively), was investigated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Analysis of the data was carried out based on the Avrami, Tobin, Ozawa, and Ziabicki models. It was found that the Avrami model provided a more satisfactorily good fit to the experimental data for these polyesters than did the Tobin model. The Ozawa model was found to describe the experimental data fairly well. The Ziabicki's kinetic crystallizability parameter G for these polyesters was found to be of the following order: PBT > PTT > PET. The effective energy barrier for nonisothermal crystallization process of these polyesters, determined by the Friedman method, was found to be an increase function with the relative degree of crystallinity. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.