Numerical simulation of steady planar die swell for a Newtonian fluid using the spectral element method

Abstract

This paper is concerned with two dimensional numerical simulations of plane extrusion of a Newtonian fluid. The problem is discretized using the spectral element method and the free surface is evolved according to an ALE treatment. Numerical simulations are performed over a wide range of Reynolds and Weber numbers to highlight the effects of inertia and surface tension, respectively. Convergence of the numerical approximations with respect to polynomial order is demonstrated for the sensitive measures of free surface location and downstream relaxation distance. The higher the inertia the further downstream the relaxation occurs. Numerical results show good qualitative and quantitative agreement with predictions of other numerical schemes and experiments.