Effect of radial flow in the die entrance region on gross melt fracture of PDMS extrudate

The gross melt fracture defect is related to the flow instabilities developed in the contraction region. To mitigate these upstream instabilities, a convergent radial flow in the die entrance has been created. In fact, the ultimate objective of the present work is to examine the effect of the clearance width of radial flow on the appearance and development of gross melt fracture defect. So, capillary rheometer experiments were performed with linear polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) oil.As for the influence of radial flow width on the morphology of gross melt fracture defect, extrudate photographs show that this imperfection can be mitigated since its frequency is higher and amplitude smaller when the gap of radial flow decreases. Such results may be related both to shear and elongational components of radial flow. Actually, when gap width is very small compared to the external diameter of radial flow, shear deformations become more enhanced with respect to the elongational deformations and thus the helical gross melt fracture becomes more like a surface defect than volume defect.