Abstract

The plane extrusion process of a material considered as a non Newtonian fluid with a viscosity dependent on the shear deformation rate and temperature, has been analyzed. To this end, a thermally coupled flow formulation is presented in the framework of the finite element method using a generalized streamline operator technique. This numerical model is applied to the analysis of a low-density polyethylene extrusion process. In particular, the influence of the temperature and deformation rate on the flow and thermal patterns is studied. The numerical results obtained in the simulation show that the maximum temperature existing in the material strongly depends on the mold temperature and the hear deformation rate developed during the process, such that the latter is mainly governed by the inlet velocity.