The matching of experimental polymer processing flows to viscoelastic numerical simulation

This paper describes work carried out in order to match experimental processing flows to numerical simulation. The work has brought together a consortium that has developed reliable experimental methods by which processing flows can be achieved in the laboratory and then ranked against numerical simulation. A full rheological characterisation of a selected range of polymers was made and the results compared from different laboratories. The data was fitted to a number of rheological models. Multi-mode parameter fitting was universal for the linear viscoelastic response. Particular attention was paid to the non linear response of the material. Prototype industrial flow experiments were carried out for a number of geometries in different laboratories and the flow birefringence technique was used to map out the experimentally observed stress fields for different polymers in a range of complex flows that contained both extensional and shear flow components. Numerical simulation was carried out using a number of algorithms and a range of constitutive equations. In order to make a quantitative comparison between experiment and simulation, an Advanced Rheological Tool (ART) module was developed that was able in some cases to quantify the level of fit between the numerically predicted and the experimentally observed stress patterns. In addition the ART module was able to optimise certain non-linear parameters in order to improve the quality of fit between experiment and simulation.