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NON-ISOTHERMAL SIMULATIONS OF PARTIALLY-FILLED RUBBER MIXING FOR TIRE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES

Poudyal, Hari
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9318-5053
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron151965133948719

Abstract Details

2018, Master of Science in Engineering, University of Akron, Mechanical Engineering.
Mixing is one of the initial and critical steps for the industrial process of manufacturing tires. The primary objective of mixing includes the blending of ingredients, addition of energy to break the molecular bonds, facilitation of chemical reactions, and incorporation of air. For this purpose, the internal batch mixers have been used in various research laboratories for the development of new materials and also to study the effect of polymer-polymer interactions on the mixing quality. There are various operating parameters that effect the quality of mixing such as fill-factor, different rotor designs, even or friction rotor speed, ram pressure, duration of mixing, viscous heating, efficiency of the external cooling, etc. This research primarily focuses on the effect of non-isothermal consideration in the rubber mixing simulations. Two and three-dimensional numerical studies have been performed using a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code to access the effect of different operating parameters. Also, the importance of carrying out non-isothermal simulations for partially-filled rubber mixing process has been shown by comparing different mixing measures with the isothermal one. The motion of the rotors in the computation is accomplished through a sliding mesh technique, and the Eulerian-based Volume of Fluid (VOF) method is employed to capture the interface between the rubber and air phase. The non-Newtonian Bird-Carreau model along with an Arrhenius formulation is used to define the shear and temperature-dependent viscosity of rubber, and the Navier-Stokes equations are solved using a finite volume technique. The high viscosity of rubber leads to viscous heating, especially in the narrow clearance region that has a high shear, and this further affects the rubber viscosity and flow characteristics. The effect of temperature on rubber viscosity and as well as shear stress are discussed here as well. Particle tracking is employed in the simulations by injecting the massless and neutral material points in between the two rotors to assess dispersive and distributive mixing characteristics. Specifically, statistics of maximum shear stress, and particle pairwise distances in the form of length of stretch, cluster distribution index and the interchamber particle transfer rate, are compared to better understand the overall mixing efficiency.
Scott Sawyer (Advisor)
102 p.
Mechanical Engineering

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Citations

  • Poudyal, H. (2018). NON-ISOTHERMAL SIMULATIONS OF PARTIALLY-FILLED RUBBER MIXING FOR TIRE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES [Master's thesis, University of Akron]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron151965133948719

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Poudyal, Hari. NON-ISOTHERMAL SIMULATIONS OF PARTIALLY-FILLED RUBBER MIXING FOR TIRE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES. 2018. University of Akron, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron151965133948719.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Poudyal, Hari. "NON-ISOTHERMAL SIMULATIONS OF PARTIALLY-FILLED RUBBER MIXING FOR TIRE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES." Master's thesis, University of Akron, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron151965133948719

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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