The Simulation Analysis Of Rubber Flow In Internal Mixer

The internal mixer is extensively applied in rubber industry for its high mixing capacity. Much attention has been paid to the flow of rubber in the chamber of the internal mixer by researchers, designers and engineers. Simulation study of the flow of rubber in the chamber of the internal mixer helps not only to optimize the rotors and the operating parameters, but also to simplify the experiments and lower the cost. In actual application, the mixer chamber is always partially filled, so there is a operating parameter named filling coefficient. Partial-filled flow of rubber in the chamber of the internal mixer is a challenge in the simulation study and this causes the current simulation study largely concentrate on the full-filled flow. In this paper, a partial-filled finite element method for flow of rubber in the chamber of the internal mixer is developed. The primary achievements of this paper are as follows:1. The FLUENT was implemented to simulate the2-D, isothermal, non-Newtonian fluid calculation model of partially filled internal mixer based on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and volume of fluid (VOF). Through the numerical simulation tracking of free surface, analyze the two-phase flow of rubber and air.2. Established the2-D, isothermal, non-Newtonian fluid calculation model of fully filled internal mixer and presented a series of comparative research of flow behaviors in partially filled mixer and fully filled mixer. The flow field becomes more complicated, higher dispersive mixing efficiency and lower energy consumption in partially filled internal mixer by comparison with the stability and periodicity of fully filled internal mixer.3. Research the influence of filling coefficient (β=0.3,0.7,0.95) on the mixing behavior of the internal mixer. The flow field was characterized in terms of two-phase distributions, velocity vector profiles, shear stress distributions and torque curve. The results showed that when the coefficient is0.7, the mixer can provide better flow field characteristics for mixing.4. The influence of rotor configuration on the dispersive mixing performance of internal mixer was studied by Banbury rotor and Roller rotor. Dispersive mixing efficiency was quantified in terms of shear stress and mixing index generated in the flow field. Combine with other flow parameters, we can found that Roller rotor can provide better flow and dispersive performances than Banbury rotor, although there were still areas of poor mixing found in all.