In many industrial applications, the quality of mixing between different materials is fundamental to guarantee the desired properties of products. However, properly modelling and understanding polymer mixing presents noticeable difficulties, because of the variety and complexity of the phenomena involved. This is also the case with the Cavity Transfer Mixer (CTM), an add-on to be mounted downstream of existing extruders, in order to improve distributive mixing. The present work proposes a fully three-dimensional model of the CTM: a finite element solver provides the transient velocity field, which is used in the mapping method implementation in order to compute the concentration field evolution and quantify mixing. Several simulations are run assessing the impact on mixing of geometrical and functioning parameters. In general, the number of cavities per row should be limited and the cavity size rather big in order to guarantee good mixing quality.Topical Heading: Soft Matter: Synthesis, Processing and Products.
In the polymer industry good mixing is essential to guarantee the characteristics of finished products. However, optimizing mixing devices is often difficult because mixing mechanisms are the result of the complex interaction between the moving elements and the non‐Newtonian fluids used. Full 3D simulations are computationally expensive and the complexity of the problem is often split into approximated subproblems. The present work focuses on a simplified 2D model of the Cavity Transfer Mixer, investigating stretching and folding mixing actions. Several geometrical and functioning parameters, such as cavity speed, cavity shape, intercavity distance, rotor–stator clearance, and fluid rheology are varied. Mixing is analyzed in terms of Poincaré maps and by simulating the evolution of fluid blobs. The intercavity distance is found to play a major role, enabling and governing the stretching actions inside the mixing device.
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