Sharkskin instabilities and the effect of slip from gas-assisted extrusion

This paper is concerned with a polymer extrusion instability and the effect of introducing slip by means of a thin lubricating gas layer between the extrusion die wall and the flowing polymer melt. Gas-assisted extrusion (GAE) experiments were carried out using high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) for a number of different gas injection die geometries. The stress distributions within the polymer melt were monitored during extrusion using flow birefringence. Polyflow numerical simulations were used to calculate the local stress concentrations in the melt at the die exit, as these were believed to be related to the occurrence of sharkskin. Simulations were also used to observe the effect of a full slip boundary condition as imparted by GAE. A key finding of the paper is that GAE in the parallel section of the die wall simply moved the local exit stress concentration upstream to the point of gas injection, and therefore did not reduce sharkskin. Simulations indicated that for correctly designed dies, the local surface stress concentration would be reduced. However, it was found experimentally that it was not possible to obtain a stable gas layer for this die design with upstream gas injection. A numerical investigation, involving simulations of varying levels of partial slip along the die wall, indicated an optimum level of slip where the stress concentrations were reduced. It is speculated that this is the reason that coatings such as PTFE, which impart a partial slip, can reduce sharkskin while GAE does not. The findings show that a controlled level of partial slip lowers the overall stress concentrations.