No abstract

The stability of a blown film extrusion process has been investigated using a simple isothermal Newtonian model. Although the Newtonian model may be an oversimplification for polymer melts, it serves as a reasonable first approximation for linear polymers (e.g., linear low density polyethylene) in extensional flow situations. The results obtained by the method of linear stability analysis indicate that the blown film process becomes unstable if the blow-up ratio (BUR) or the film thickness reduction is larger than a certain critical value. In addition, existence of an optimum freeze-line-height is predicted at which the region of stable operation is largest in terms of the BUR and the film thickness reduction. These predicted trends are in qualitative agreement with experimental observations for linear polymers such as LLDPE.

The mechanics of a bicomponent two‐layer blown film coextrusion is studied theoretically. As a first step for the modeling of this complex process, we adopt a simple system in which the flow is assumed to be isothermal and the two layers are a Newtonian and an upper‐convected Maxwell fluid (UCM), respectively. The two fluids are chosen to investigate the relative influence of viscous and viscoelastic forces on the flow mechanics of the process. For a given total flow rate, blow‐up ratio, freeze‐line height, and film gage, the radius and the melt thickness profiles of the blown film are determined numerically for various values of the flow rate ratio of the two fluids. When the relaxation time of the UCM layer is small, the flow mechanics including the shape of the bubble (or the radius profile) is not much different from that of a Newtonian single‐layer flow. With increasing relaxation time, the viscoelasticity effect of the UCM layer becomes more and more pronounced and eventually dominates the bubble dynamics even though its layer thickness may be smaller than that of the Newtonian layer.

Miller cycle is considered as an effective means to meet the regulation on Tier Ⅱ and to reduce CO2 emission. For this cycle, the amount of intake air supplied should be enough increased. Therefore, the intake system with minimized resistance for air flow is under consideration. In this study, the flow coefficients of intake valves were measured in order to obtain the basic data for the cycle simulation and intake port design. The flow coefficients were measured using the steady-flow test rig. As a test result for the poppet valve used the marine engine with medium speed, the flow coefficients are increased to about 0.62 with the valve lift. In addition it is confirmed that the flow coefficients have the characteristic value irrelevant to the S/B ratio.