CP 502 – Computational Fluid Dynamics Project

Steady flow of an incompressible, isothermal and homogeneous Eyring – Powell fluid in helical
screw rheometer is the system chosen to study.
Since the geometry is complicated to study, several assumptions were made in order to simplify
the geometry which mention below.

 The curvature of the screw channel is ignored, unrolled and laid out on a flat surface.
 The barrel surface is also flattened.
 Screw surface, the lower plate is stationary and the barrel surface. The upper plate is
moving across the top of the channel with velocity V and angle Ɵ to the direction of the
channel.
 Geometry is approximated as a shallow infinite channel by assuming the width of the
channel is large compared with the depth.
 Edge effects in the fluid at the land are ignored.
 Liquid wets all the surfaces and moves by the shear stresses produced by the relative
movement of the barrel and channel.
 No leakages of the fluid occurs across the flights.

Moving barrel
surface

Flight walls

Stationary screw
surface
 Geometry built in COMSOL
x axis – perpendicular to the flight walls
y axis – perpendicular to the barrel surface
z axis – down channel direction

Equations governing by the system;

𝑑𝑖𝑣 𝑽 = 0
𝐷𝑽
𝜌 = 𝜌𝒇 + 𝑑𝑖𝑣 𝑻
𝐷𝑡
𝑻 = −𝑃𝑰 + 𝑺

Where;
V – Velocity field
ρ – Constant fluid density
f – Body force per unit mass
T – Cauchy stress tensor
P – Dynamic pressure
I – Unit tensor
S – Extra stress tensor
The constitutive equation for Eyring – Powell fluid is given by,

1 1
( ) 𝑠𝑖𝑛ℎ−1 ((∈) |𝑨𝟏|)
𝛽
𝑺 = 𝜇𝑨𝟏 + 𝑨𝟏
|𝑨𝟏|
[ ]
Where;

1
|𝑨𝟏| = √ 𝑡𝑟(𝑨𝟏2 )
2

𝑨𝟏 = ∇𝑽 + (∇𝑽)𝑇
A1 – Rivlin Erickson tensor

Boundary conditions governing the system;

When y = 0; u = 0, w = 0
When y = h; u = U, w = W
Where; U = -VsinƟ and W = VcosƟ
The literature studied the non-Newtonian fluid behavior in helical screw rheomoter. Since it’s
little bit difficult to study, Newtonian fluid (water) is studied first in order to get a clear idea
how COMSOL works.
Parameters of the system;
Same boundary conditions mentioned above is used in COMSOL also. Apart from that the inlet
and outlet pressure conditions set as zero because the fluid is not moving due to pressure
gradient.
The governing equations use in COMSOL;

After defining all parameters and boundary conditions, computed velocity and pressure profile
are shown below.
Velocity profile

Pressure profile
These figures also confirm the condition that defined above. So we can say that the results are
precise.

For a cut line, the velocity and pressure profiles along them.
For whole geometry;
We can build different cut lines and get the pressure, velocity profiles as shown above.