A study of viscous dissipation in the calendering of power‐law fluids

Abstract A finite difference procedure was used to solve the equation of conservation of energy with the lubrication approximation. The temperature profiles due to viscous dissipation in the gap formed by a pair of equal sized rolls rotating at the same speed exhibit two maxima in the vicinity of the roll surfaces. The maximum temperatures also exhibit two local maxima and a minimum in the direction of flow. The calculated temperature distributions across and along the flow field reveal the possibility of excessive local heating which might be detrimental for certain temperature sensitive materials such as poly(vinyl chloride) and rubbers.