English Abstract

Finite Element Formulations of Viscoelastic Flow Analysis

Shuichi IWATA
Materials Science and Engineering, (NAGARE College), Nagoya Institute of Technology, Showa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan
Nippon Gomu Kyokaishi,(2011),84(2),49-55 General Review in Japanese

Flow of viscoelastic fluid such as polymer melt or aqueous solution of polymer is more complex in complex flow geometry even at lower Reynolds number. Rheological behavior of the polymer fluid may change non-linearly as the flow condition. Therefore, flow analysis of such polymer fluid is more important for establishing a reliable design of the processing units. Even though there are useful viscoelastic models available, numerical prediction of viscoelastic fluid is not an easy task, because of hyperbolic nature of the constitutive equation. In the last decades, great progresses have been made on the numerical methods for solving viscoelastic flow problems. In this paper, some of the finite element formulations are described and discussed.

Keywords: Viscoelastic Fluid, Finite Element Method, Formulation, Numerical Analysis