A study of bubble nucleation in a mixture of molten polymer and volatile liquid in a shear flow field

Abstract

AbstractBubble nucleation in a mixture of volatile liquid and polymer melt under shear flow conditions was investigated, using a light scattering technique. In the study, a mixture of polystyrene and trichlorofluoromethane was extruded through a slit die having glass windows and bubble nucleation in the flow channel was observed optically. A He‐Ne laser was used to illuminate the nucleating and growing bubbles. The light flux scattered by the growing bubbles at a fixed angle was detected by a photomultiplier with the aid of a high‐voltage power supply. The bubble nucleating site in the flow channel was located using a computer controlled tracking system, which was designed to move the entire optical system automatically in the three dimensional space, and also had the ability to follow the software control command and cooperate with the data acquisition system. When the site of bubble nucleation was located, the coordinates of this site in the flow channel and the experimental conditions were automatically recorded on a floppy diskette by entering a software command. The pressure profile along the flow channel was measured by pressure transducers, with the aid of a microprocessor‐based pressure reading system. It has been found that the site of bubble nucleation varies with the position in the direction perpendicular to the flow direction, which is attributed to the nonuniform velocity and stress distributions in the slit flow channel. The present investigation suggests that bubble nucleation can be induced either by flow and/or shear stress; specifically, flow‐induced bubble nucleation is the dominant mechanism at positions near the center of the die opening, and shear‐induced bubble nucleation is the dominant mechanism at positions near the die wall. It should be mentioned that the bubble near the die wall may also be generated by cavitation brought about by the surface roughness of the wall and also by thermal fluctuations due to the heat transfer between the metal (die wall) and the mixture of polymer and volatile component. The present study indicates that bubble nucleation in a shear flow field can occur at an unsaturated condition. This is in contrast to bubble nucleation under static conditions, where supersaturation is necessary.