FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF TWO-DIMENSIONAL POLYMER MELT FLOWS.

A general-purpose finite element program has been developed for numerical modeling of the flow of polymer melts through processing equipment. Several problems have been solved for two-dimensional creeping flow using Newtonian and power-law models under isothermal and nonisothermal conditions. These include planar entry flows, driven cavity flows, and flow in the gap between calender rolls. A viscoelastic model called the Criminale-Ericksen-Filbey fluid was used to calculate a fully-developed shear flow between two flat plates and a tapered entry flow. The viscosity eta and the normal stress coefficients PSI //1 and PSI //2 were assumed to be either constant or functions of the magnitude of the strain rate tensor. While the iterative scheme is not converging for high Deborah numbers, the numerical calculations are in agreement with other theoretical investigations available in the literature for inelastic and moderately elastic fluids.