  The work introduces a 3D cellular automaton model for the spatial and
crystallographic prediction of spherulite growth phenomena in polymers at the
mesoscopic scale. The automaton is discrete in time, real space, and
orientation space. The kinetics is formulated according to the
Hoffman-Lauritzen secondary surface nucleation and growth theory for spherulite
expansion. It is used to calculate the switching probability of each grid point
as a function of its previous state and the state of the neighboring grid
points. The actual switching decision is made by evaluating the local switching
probability using a Monte Carlo step. The growth rule is scaled by the ratio of
the local and the maximum interface energies, the local and maximum occurring
Gibbs free energy of transformation, the local and maximum occurring
temperature, and by the spacing of the grid points. The use of experimental
input data provides a real time and space scale.
