SynopsisThe Pom-Pom model, recently introduced by McLeish and Larson ͓J. Rheol. 42, 81-110 ͑1998͔͒, is a breakthrough in the field of viscoelastic constitutive equations. With this model, a correct nonlinear behavior in both elongation and shear is accomplished. The original differential equations, improved with local branch-point displacement, are modified to overcome three drawbacks: solutions in steady state elongation show discontinuities, the equation for orientation is unbounded for high strain rates, the model does not have a second normal stress difference in shear. The modified extended Pom-Pom model does not show the three problems and is easy for implementation in finite element packages, because it is written as a single equation. Quantitative agreement is shown with experimental data in uniaxial, planar, equibiaxial elongation as well as shear, reversed flow and step-strain for two commercial low density polyethylene ͑LDPE͒ melts and one high density polyethylene ͑HDPE͒ melt. Such a good agreement over a full range of well defined rheometric experiments, i.e., shear, including reversed flow for one LDPE melt, and different elongational flows, is exceptional.

The modelling of non-isothermal flow of viscoelastic materials using differential constitutive equations is investigated. The approach is based on the concept of a slip tensor describing the nonaffine motion of the stress-carrying structure of the fluid. By specifying a slip tensor and the elastic behaviour of the structure, the constitutive model is determined. This slip tensor also appears in the energy equation and thus, for a given constitutive model, the form of the energy equation is known. Besides the partitioning between dissipated and elastically stored energy, also the difference between entropy and energy elasticity is discussed. Numerical simulations are based on a stabilized Discontinuous Galerkin method to solve the mass, momentum and constitutive equations and a Streamline Upwind Petrov-Galerkin formulation to solve the energy equation. Coupling is achieved by a fixed point iteration. The flow around a confined cylinder is investigated, showing differences between viscous and viscoelastic modelling, and between limiting cases of viscoelastic modelling. © 1997 Elsevier Science B,V.

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