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Modeling of free radical polymerization leads to very large and usually stiff systems of ordinary differential equations which cannot be solved directly in an efficient way. This paper presents the application of a new approach called discrete Galerkin method to a realistic example - the polymerization of methyl methacrylate(MMA). The method is characterized by a Galerkin approximation on the basis of orthogonal polynomials of a discrete variable which represents the polymer degree. It allows the efficient computation of solutions of complete kinetic schemes with time- or moment-dependent reaction coefficients by reducing the complexity to a few differential equations. The approximation error can be controlled by an error estimation. In the case of MMA polymerization a reduction of computational effort by a factor of about 25 compared to a standard method can be obtained for the quasi-steady-state approximation of the model. In addition solutions of the instationary kinetic scheme can be easily computed.
The discrete Galerkin method developed by the authors has turned out to be an efficient tool for the computational treatment of very large scale ODE systems arising in polyreaction kinetics. Up to now, this approach has been worked out in detail for homogeneous polymer reactions. The present paper deals with one line of possible extensions of the method to the case of so-called heterogeneous processes, which may appear e. g. in smog reactions. The associated mathematical models involve reaction coefficients depending on the chain length of the reacting polymer. The herein suggested extension is worked out in some detail on the basis of the earlier paper. In addition, a numerical example describing polymer degradation is included.
The paper surveys three aspects of chemical computing, which seem to play a role in recent developments. First, extrapolation methods for the numerical treatment of differential- algebraic equations are introduced. The associated extrapolation code LIMEX has reached a certain level of sophistication, which makes it a real competitor to the elsewhere widely used multi-step code DASSL of Petzold. Second, adaptive methods of lines for partial differential equations such as those arising in combustion problems are treated. Both static and dynamic regridding techniques are discussed in some detail. Finally, some new ideas about the treatment of the kinetic equations arising from polymer reactions are presented. The new feature of the suggested approach is the application of a Galerkin procedure using sets of orthogonal polynomials over a discrete variable (which, of course, in the case of polymer reactions is the polymer degree). The new approach may open the door to a new reliable low dimensional treatment of complex polymer reactions.