Numerical Simulation of Mixing Characteristics in a Vane Extruder

The polymer vane extruder, whose plasticating and conveying theory is based on elongational rheology, is a significant development in plastic processing equipment. As a result of its unique structure, it is desirable to use numerical simulation to study it. The results can be useful to set process parameters and optimize its structure. In this paper, numerical simulation of the mixing characteristics of the vane extruder was performed with the finite element computational fluid dynamics program POLYFLOW. To visualize the mixing process of the melts in a vane extruder based on the calculation of the transient flow, a particle tracking method was applied. By using the statistical post-processor program POLYSTAT, dispersive mixing and distributive mixing characteristics were evaluated in terms of shear rate, stretching rate, mixing index, and time average mixing efficiency. The simulation results showed that strong stretching existed in the vane extruder demonstrating that the vane extruder generated a more appropriate flow than a common twin-screw extruder to break material particles into smaller ones. The probability functions of mixing efficiency showed that the position near the outflow had the highest mixing efficiency. Furthermore, the time average mixing efficiency of most particles in the vane extruder were larger than that in a twin-screw extruder, indicating that in the vane extruder more mechanical energy was used to generate stretching.