SIMULATION OF CABLE-COATING VISCOELASTIC FLOWS WITH COUPLED AND DECOUPLED SCHEMES

Tube tooling extrusion coating is simulated for a low density polymer melt using a finite element method and a single-mode exponential Phan- Thien/Tanner constitutive model. A time-stepping Taylor-Galerkin/press ure-correction scheme is used under both coupled and decoupled solutio n approaches. Stress response and pressure drop across the flow are in vestigated. For longer relaxation times, shear and tensile stress do n ot vary significantly throughout the flow, whilst pressure drop is fou nd to be most sensitive to the quality of the model fit to the shear e xperimental data. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.