FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATION OF NON-ISOTHERMAL LOW REYNOLDS NUMBER NON-NEWTONIAN FLOWS

A general-purpose finite element program was used to solve the equations of conservation of mass, momentum and energy for slow viscous flows of non-Newtonian fluids. The central focus of this work involves the simulation of polymer melt flows through process equipment. Several types of flow geometries were studied, e.g. two- dimensional, tubular, radial and flows in irregularly shaped channels. Some problems involved free surfaces, e.g. in the …