Negative Pressures in Modelling Rotating Polymer Processing Machinery Are Meaningless, But They Are Telling Something

Abstract In the technical literature, some authors have reported calculation of negative pressures in simulations of twin screw extrusion and other types of processing, without giving any explanations. In the majority publications there is no mention of such meaningless results, even though theoretical considerations indicate that negative pressures could be obtained in the expansion region of drag flows through narrow non-parallel surfaces. The meaningless negative pressures are due to the application of single fluid theory to flow regions where bubbles would form, when the pressure drops below the vapor pressure of the liquid. This has been known for a long time from the study of lubrication bearings and related cavitation phenomena. It is argued that the boundary conditions should be carefully chosen for avoiding results in numerical simulations, which can never be reconciled with experimental pressure data.