On the extrusion of visco-elastic fluids subject to viscous heating

The die‐swell occurring during the extrusion of a visco‐elastic fluid has been extensively examined in recent years, both experimentally and numerically. These investigations have been mainly confined to isothermal flows. If the material is initially relatively cool, however, viscous heating may lead to proportionally large changes in temperature and material properties, with significant effects on die‐swell. An iterative computational model is presented which describes the flow of Maxwell and Oldroyed fluids subject to the effect of temperature gradients induced by viscous heating and thermal boundary conditions. Predictions are presented for extrusion from both slit and axisymmetric dies.