Abstract: | To simulate filling flow in injection moulding for viscoelastic fluids, a numerical method, based on a finite element method and a finite volume method, has been developed for incompressible isothermal viscoelastic flow with moving free surfaces. The advantages of this method are, first, good applicability to arbitrarily shaped mould geometries and, second, accurate treatment for boundary conditions on the free surface. Typical filling flows are simulated, namely filling flow into a 1:4 expansion cavity with and without an obstacle. Numerical results predict the position of weld lines and air-traps. The method also indicates the effects of elongational flow on molecular orientation. |