A model for the analysis of the heat release from a supercooled liquid at the glass transition

In this paper we present a phenomenological model to analyze the heat release at the glass transition as observed in the continuous cooling calorimetry when a supercooled liquid freezes into the glassy state. We developed this model for the quantitative analysis of the experimental data to obtain the specific heat and the parameters which govern the structural relaxation. A description of the model and the detailed analysis are presented and the relaxation parameters are compared with the corresponding values obtained from the specific heat spectroscopy. Our analysis reveals several interesting aspects which include the effects of delayed enthalpy relaxation and the nonequilibrium. structural relaxation time on the observed specific heat, the temperature dependence of the equilibrium configurational specific heat and the validity of the Vogel-Fulcher equation for the relaxation time