Modeling and simulation of polymer melts flow in the extrusion process of plastic profile with metal insert

The extrusion technology of plastic profile with metal insert is recently an advanced plastic processing method whose products keeps rising today for their excellent performance. However, the related fundamental research on polymer forming mechanism in the extrusion process of plastic profile with metal insert is lagging behind. With the development of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) theory, numerical method becomes an effective way to investigate such complex material forming problems as in the polymer extrusion process. In the present study, the mathematical model for three-dimensional non-isothermal viscous flow of the polymer melts obeying a Carreau model is developed based on the CFD theory. The Williams–Landel–Ferry equation is employed to involve the temperature dependence of material parameters. A decoupled numerical algorithm based on the penalty finite element method is conducted to predict the rheological behaviors of polymer melts within the complex flow channel. The streamline upwind/Petrov–Galerkin scheme is employed to improve the computational stability for the calculation of temperature field. Based on the theoretical model, the essential flow characteristics of polymer melts in the extrusion process of plastic profile with metal insert is investigated. The distributions of principal field variables like flow velocity, melt temperature, flow stress and pressure drop are predicted. The effects of die structure parameters including the intake angle and the distribution section length upon the melts flow patterns are further discussed. The variations of melt rheological properties versus different processing conditions like the volume flow rate and the metal insert moving velocity are also investigated. Some advice on practical processing operations of the extrusion process of plastic profile with metal insert is accordingly put forward based on the numerical results.