A pseudo-time integral method for non-isothermal viscoelastic flows and its application to extrusion simulation

Abstract

A pseudo-time integral scheme based on a finite streamline element method is developed to combine variable temperature with viscoelasticity. A specific KBKZ integral model for isothermal flow is transformed to its non-isothermal version by introducing a pseudo-time and applying the Morland-Lee hypothesis. The coupling between momentum and energy equations is through the time-temperature shifting factor by which the pseudo-time is defined. The observer time and the pseudo-time are simultaneously calculated when tracing the strain history for the stress calculation in a non-homogeneous temperature field. Using this scheme, a full non-isothermal numerical simulation of some IUPAC extrusion experiments is carried out. Results show that while the temperature distribution near the die exit plane is an important factor controlling extrudate swell, either self-heating inside the die tube or external cooling on the free surface dominantly determines the temperature distribution near the die exit when the wall temperature is kept constant, depending on whether the Péclet number is large or small. The hot layer effect predicted by the inelastic swell mechanism is confirmed and well illustrated by the computation. Calculations with reasonable thermal boundary conditions further convince us that the isothermal assumption in our earlier numerical simulation is a good approximation in this particular case.