Open Access

ARTICLE

A Finite Element Investigation of Elastic Flow Asymmetries in Cross-Slot Geometries Using a Direct Steady Solver

by A. Filali¹, L. Khezzar¹

1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
2 Corresponding author. Email: lkhezzar@pi.ac.ae

Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2013, 9(3), 307-329. https://doi.org/10.3970/fdmp.2013.009.307

Abstract

Numerical investigations of purely-elastic instabilities occurring in creeping flows are reported in planar cross-slot geometries with both sharp and round corners. The fluid is described by the upper-convected Maxwell model, and the governing equations are solved using the finite element technique based on a steady (non-iterative) direct solver implemented in the POLYFLOWcommercial software (version 14.0). Specifically, extensive simulations were carried out on different meshes, with and without the use of flow perturbations, for a wide range of rheological parameters. Such simulations show the onset of flow asymmetries above a critical Deborah number (De). The effect of rounding the corners is also addressed. The numerical results obtained are found to be in good quantitative agreement with previously published numerical results

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