Optimization of Polymer Products through Rheology under Extrusion Process

A novel additive manufacturing technique is proposed for printing polymers withcontrolled and spatially varying rheological properties. The technique, the Parallel Plates,involves altering the flow area of the polymer melt inside the printing head and applying acontrolled shear on the polymer melt. The numerical simulations indicate that the shearrates can be changed dramatically by confining the polymer flow to specific thicknesses.The ability to control shear rates on the polymer melt would provide a strategy for tunabletemporal control of melt rheology, which plays a critical role in the localized evolution ofmolecular orientation (for all polymers) and crystallization kinetics (for semi-crystallinepolymers) during additive manufacturing processes.An attempt of experimentation analysis has failed due to timing scheduling difficulties.It is recommended to follow with the experimental analysis to validate the numericallyhypothesized theory.A numerical investigation of a novel profile extrusion technique has been done inchapter 3 with the goal of reducing production time and cost. The technique of theRegulated Die involves manipulating the extruded polymer into different paths withdifferent path diameter to control the production rate of each path. The numericalsimulations indicates the possibility of assembling such a technique physically to providecontrol over the production rate of different parts using one extrusion machine.