A state-of-the-art review on the mathematical modeling and computer simulation of rubber vulcanization process

Abstract

This monograph reviews and examines the theoretical background and literature published so far for the mathematical modeling and simulation of the rubber vulcanization process. This work has been organized in the following way. First, an introductory section is given, which provides a brief overview of the topic and the aim and scope of the paper. Then, it goes on to give a comprehensive overview of the historical background up to present state. It is tried here not only to consider rubber vulcanization process, but the curing of other thermoset polymers are examined. The third section presents the mathematical modeling of the curing process and focuses on four key items including heat transfer governing equations, thermal properties of rubbers and their measurements, kinetics of the curing reaction and solution methodology. In this part, the details of the solution methods for the governing equations and also different types of kinetics of curing reactions are studied. The fourth section presents the findings of some research works carried out in this field, which is divided into two subsections as tires and non-tires applications. A brief summary on the presented work and some suggestions for future research are introduced in the fifth section, and finally the bibliography of this review is given.