Modeling and simulation of the viscoelastic fluid mold filling process by level set method

Abstract

A model for unifying a viscoelastic fluid and a Newtonian fluid is established, in which the governing equations for the viscoelastic fluid and the Newtonian fluid are successfully united into a system of generalized Navier–Stokes equations. A level set method is set up to solve the model for capturing the moving interface in the mold filling process. The physical governing equations are solved by the finite volume method on a non-staggered grid and the interpolation technique on the collocated grid is used for the pressure-velocity and the stress-velocity decoupling problems. The level set and its reinitialization equation are solved by the finite difference method, in which the spatial derivatives are discretized by the 5th-order Weighted Essentially Non-Oscillatory (WENO) scheme, and the temporal derivatives are discretized by the 3rd-order Total Variation Diminishing Runge–Kutta (TVD-R–K) scheme. The validity of the method is verified by some benchmark problems. Then a simulation of viscoelastic fluid mold filling process is pursued with the method. The moving interface and all the information of the physical quantities during the injection process are captured. The die swelling phenomenon is found in the simulation. The influences of elasticity and viscosity on the physical quantities such as stresses etc. in the mold filling process are analyzed. Numerical results show that elastic characteristics such as the stretch and die swelling etc. reinforce accordingly as Weissenberg number increases. Pressures increase continuously in the mold filling process and the pressure maintains the maximum value at the inlet. Injection velocity is proportional to injection pressure. A higher viscosity leads to a higher pressure distribution, that is, the pressure decreases as Reynolds number increases.