A self-wiping co-rotating twin-screw extruder (TSE) is operated in a starved state in which the screws are partially filled with resin. Understanding the resin distribution on the screw surface of a TSE in this state is essential for the design, operation, and maintenance of the twin-screw extrusion process. Accordingly, in this study, the circumferential and axial distribution of resin in a TSE were simulated using a novel method combining the mathematical formulation of Hele-Shaw flow, the finite element method, and a newly developed down-wind pressure updating scheme. The results of the simulation were found to be in good agreement with experimental measurements. The proposed simulation method enables the detailed visualization of resin distribution in the entire axial and circumferential directions over the length of a TSE, improving the ability to determine both the devolatilization and fiber attrition during the extrusion process.

Although the advantages of sp3‐rich, sterically complicated molecules in drug development have been pointed out, modern screening libraries are filled with planar, sp2‐rich components. Compounds that are sp3‐rich are difficult to synthesize, and thus we aimed to invent an efficient method to construct sp3‐rich libraries. By modifying sp3‐rich 7‐azanorbornane scaffolds through click chemistry, we efficiently prepared a small set of compounds. These compounds were not only sp3‐rich, but also had sufficient “lead‐like” properties in view of molecular weights and hydrophobicity. Screening assays of this library provided weak κ opioid receptor agonists and growth hormone secretagogue receptor agonists with high hit rates. These results indicate that the 7‐azanorbornane scaffold may be a “privileged structure” for lead identification in drug discovery.

It is essential to understand the extent of partial filling of the flight screw, the degree of fill, which is an operational variable of the twin-screw extruder (TSE). This article reports the first attempt to measure, in situ, the degree of fill in a rotating full-flight screw using a specialized light-section method for a TSE. The thickness of the resin sticking to the pushing side decreased with increasing rotational speed. The degree of fill is inversely proportional to the rotational speed and proportional to the feed rate. This result agreed well with the results suggested by the conventional analysis of flow in the TSEs. The fast Fourier transformation of the degree of fill time series indicated that the period of fluctuation correlated with the screw speed rather than the feed rate or throughput. Keywords: twin-screw extruder, degree of fill, molten polymer, light section method As a fundamental research on the flow characteristics of TSEs, many studies have been carried out on the measurement of resin pressure at the barrel surface, the residence time distribution, and the resin temperature of the molten resin along the extrudate direction. 1-7 However, there are few studies measuring the degree of fill of the resin in the TSEs. The degree of fill, also called as the filling ratio, fill ratio, filling level, 8 or fill degree, 9 , is a time-dependent periodic state variable and is fundamentally important for mixing and devolatilizing gases in the operating TSEs. 10 We believe that measuring the degree of fill quantitatively would be useful for the validation of numerical simulations and theoretical calculations, and would facilitate the design, operation, and maintenance of TSEs. The evaluation of degree of fill is carried out by three different methods: (1) direct observation through a viewing window 11,12 ; (2) a transparent barrel is used to measure the

Devolatilization is an important process for separating and removing unnecessary residual volatile substances or solvents during the production of polymers using twin-screw extruders. Latinen proposed a surface renewal model to determine the concentration of volatile components in the extrudate of a single-screw extruder. When a twin-screw extruder is used to calculate the concentration, it is necessary to use the exposed surface area of the resin in the starved region of Latinen’s model, which, however, is difficult to estimate. In our previous work, we numerically determined resin profiles of the screws using the 2.5D Hele–Shaw flow model and the finite element method, which helps in estimating the surface area of devolatilization. In this study, we numerically analyzed the volatile concentration of the extrudate in a self-wiping corotating twin-screw extruder using Latinen’s surface renewal model along with our resin profile calculation method. The experimental results of the concentrations of the volatile component (toluene) in the extrudate of polypropylene agreed well with its numerical calculation with a relative error of 6.5% (except for the data of the lowest rotational speed). Our results also showed that decreasing the flow rate and increasing the pump capacity were effective for removing the volatile component. The screw pitch of a full-flight screw was not affected by the devolatilization efficiency with a fixed flow rate and screw speed.

A self-wiping co-rotating twin-screw extruder (TSE) is operated in a starved state where the screws are partially filled with resin. Understanding resin distribution on the screw surface is essential for the design, operation, and maintenance of the twin-screw extrusion process. In this study, the circumferential and axial distribution of pressure, temperature, and resin in a TSE are calculated using a novel method combining the mathematical formulation of Hele-Shaw flow, the finite element method, and a newly developed down-wind pressure update scheme. The experimental results were in good agreement with the measured results. This calculation method enables us to visualize, in detail, the resin distribution, pressure, and temperature for the entire axial and circumferential direction over the TSE.