A Study on Analysis of Polymer Extruder Process Using Finite Element Method

In this study, a finite element method program code which can be accomodate boundary conditions on the complex surfaces has been developed to simulate polymer extruder processes. The analysis method includes the fractional 4-step method for efficient computation time and compact usage of memory storage to solve the velocities and the pressure values from the Navier-Stokes equation. By using the developed program which was verified with simple Poiseuille flow mixture phenomena in single-and twin-screw extruder are analyzed. It is concluded that the proposed method resulte Poiseuille Poiseuille d in fair agreement with the exact solution of simple flow and the back flow near the entrance happens in single-screw model. It is identified that the location and values of maximum pressure in the twin screw extruder model. It is expected that the Velocity field found can be used to predict the degree of mixture in the extruder barrel.