SENSITIVITY OF FLOW DISTRIBUTION AND FLOW PATTERNS IN PROFILE EXTRUSION DIES

Fluctuations of the operating conditions or slight variations of the polymer rheology may occur during long-term productions, affecting the performance of the die in an extent dependent on its flow distribution sensitivity. In this work, four extrusion dies are optimised (balanced) using different design methodologies. These are compared in terms of their performance and stability to some operating conditions and polymer rheological properties. A finite-volume based computational code is used to perform the required simulations of the non-isothermal three-dimensional flows, under conditions defined by a statistical Taguchi technique. Correlation between the flow patterns developed and flow distribution sensitivity is also investigated