English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Zendy Plus

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Zendy Tools

Zendy Open

Internal mixers used in rubber processing and other industries are always partially filled. This results in the establishment of multiple random free surfaces in the flow field generated inside these mixers. Therefore successful mathematical modelling of internal mixing process depends on the development of efficient techniques for the reliable simulation of complex free surface flows. Various interface tracking and boundary capturing methods have been used in the past to model this kind of flow regimes. In particular, in recent years the well-known volume of fluid (VOF) method has been frequently used to model a variety of processes involving free surface and moving boundary flows. Both Eulerian and Lagrangian frameworks can be adopted in the VOF scheme to simulate free surface regimes. Under realistic flow conditions, however, the straightforward application of the technique in both frameworks may yield inaccurate results unless elaborate solution strategies are used to avoid errors. In many cases the use of such elaborate schemes requires excessive computational costs and effort or the solution scheme becomes complex and inflexible. In this paper we describe a relatively simple free surface tracking method based on the application of the VOF method in an Eulerian framework. In this scheme the flow field inside a partially filled internal mixer is treated as a two-phase system consisting of incompressible and compressible phases. The sections filled with the fluid which is being mixed are always regarded as an incompressible phase. The parts which are filled with air (or voids in some applications) form the second phase in the present two-phase flow analysis. The latter phase is treated as a compressible or an incompressible fluid (or pseudo fluid in the case of voids) depending on the value of the pressure calculated at each time step for the sections which contain it. We show that free surface flow of highly viscous fluids in partially filled internal mixers can be very successfully simulated by this method.

Simulation of Free Surface Flow in Partially Filled Internal Mixers