Peter Wapperom, Martien A. Hulsen, and Jaap P.P.M. van der Zanden

A numerical method for steady and nonisothermal viscoelastic fluid flow for high Deborah and Péclet numbers

Rheologica Acta 37 (1998) 73-88

Abstract

A combined finite element / streamline integration method is presented for nonisothermal flows of viscoelastic fluids. The attention is focused on some characteristic problems that arise for numerical simulation of flows with high Deborah and Péclet numbers. The two most important problems to handle are the choice of an outflow boundary condition for not completely developed flow and the treatment of the dissipative term in the temperature equation. The ability of the numerical method to handle high Deborah and Péclet numbers will be demonstrated on a contraction flow of an LDPE melt with isotropic and anisotropic heat conductivity. The influence of anisotropic heat conduction and the difference between the stress work and mechanical dissipation will be discussed for contraction flows.

Keywords

nonisothermal viscoelastic flow; differential stress models; combined finite element / streamline integration; outflow boundary conditions; dissipation; anisotropic heat conduction