Abstract
The properties of polymer melts are different from those of monomer materials because polymer materials have crystalline and amorphous regions. In addition, polymer melts have elasticity as well as viscosity. Therefore, the viscoelasticity, crystallinity and temperature of polymer melts must be included in the accurate simulation of melt spinning process for crystalline polymer. In this study, we simulated the melt spinning process of Nylon-6 by using the streamline-upwinding finite element method. The non-isothermal Phan-Thien Tanner model proposed by Sugeng and Phan-Thien was employed as a constitutive equation. We investigated the distributions of temperature and crystallinity on the free surface of the filament, and the filament diameter. Calculation results were almost independent of gravity. The primary normal stress increases and the filament diameter decreases with an increase of take-up speed. The filament diameter obtained by the non-isothermal flow simulation is smaller than that by the isothermal one, and the filament diameter depends on the crystallinity. The shape of filament of purely viscous fluid is the same as that of viscoelastic one.
