以酶凝干酪素的凝胶化过程为对象,利用有限元方法数值分析了在凝胶化过程中温度场的空间分布和时间演变规律.在此基础上,基于一阶的凝胶化动力学方程,数值模拟了凝胶体系的复剪切模量场,进而分析了材料配方、体系尺寸与冷却方案对复剪切模量场的影响规律.模拟结果表明,由于热阻的差异,体系表面的冷却速率大于内部,表面首先发生凝胶化;而由于预凝胶化阶段的平均冷却速率决定了无穷复剪切模量的值,最终体系内部的复剪切模量超过表面的.
A physical gel is a three-dimensional network of polymer chains cross-linked by physical junctions,and it can arise either as the result of a phase transition or through some specific molecular association or as a result of entanglements.Due to the complexity of the inner structure and gelation mechanism,it is difficult to obtain purposefully polymer physical gel materials with specific constitution and properties.Thus,the controllable preparation and application of polymer physical gels are a long-term work.As a numerical simulation method in macro-scale the finite element method has been used to the study of chemical gelation,but rarely to physical gelation presently.The reasons may be:compared with chemical gels the gelation process of physical gels is more complex resulting from the bigger complexity of the system composition and physical interactions.Several kinds of interactions and steps may be involved in one physical gelation process.And under different conditions the gelation mechanisms are frequently different.By now the understanding of the gelation mechanisms of many kinds of physical gels is far from being intensive; the phenomenological gelation kinetics models are usually nonlinear; the theory describing the relation between the microscopic and mesoscopic structure and the macroscopic properties is still immature.For all the factors mentioned above the numerical simulation of physical gelation process in macro-scale comes to be a difficult work.In order to optimize raw material formulation and physical gelation conditions,and then obtain polymer physical gels according to requirements,the spatial distribution and time evolution characteristics of the temperature field during the gelation process were studied via the finite element method.On the basis of the temperature field calculated,the complex shear modulus field of gel system was numerically simulated according to a first-order gelation kinetic equation,and the effects of raw material concentration,sample size and cooling modes on the physi