NUMERICAL COUPLING OF MULTIPLE-REGION SIMULATIONS TO STUDY TRANSPORT IN A TWIN-SCREW EXTRUDER

A new simplified approach has been proposed toward coupling of the num erical simulation of transport phenomena in multiple regions in order to model complex domains. This approach is employed to study a tangent ial corotating twin-screw extrusion process. The flow domain in a twin -screw extruder is divided into the translation region (T region) and the intermeshing region (I region). The two regions are simulated sepa rately and then coupled for each screw section, to model the overall t ransport. A finite difference method is employed in the T region, whil e a finite element method is employed for the I region. A procedure fo r coupling of the two flow regions is presented.