Stochastic and deterministic simulation of nonisothermal crystallization of polymers

This paper is devoted to the numerical simulation of nonisothermal crystallization of polymers, which may be modelled as a stochastic birth-and-growth process. One of the main aims is to develop efficient algorithms for the stochastic simulation of such process. We put a special emphasis on the problem of computing the surface density of crystals, which is an important factor for the mechanical properties of the solidified material. Moreover, an averaged deterministic model, designed as an approximation in the case of many small crystals (which is very frequent in industrial applications), is presented, and the results of numerical simulations are compared with the corresponding simulations of the stochastic model.