Pengtao Yue, James J. Feng, Christopher A. Bertelo & Howard
H. Hu
J. Comput. Phys. 226, 2229-2249 (2007)
Abstract - We present a
sharp-interface algorithm for simulating the diffusion-driven bubble
growth in polymer foaming. A moving mesh of unstructured triangular
elements tracks the expanding and deforming bubble surface. In the
interior of the liquid, the mesh velocity is determined by solving a
Laplace equation to ensure spatially smooth mesh movement. When mesh
distortion becomes severe, remeshing and interpolation are performed.
The governing equations are solved using a Galerkin finite-element
formalism, with fully implicit time marching that requires iteration
among the bubble and mesh deformation, gas diffusion and the flow and
stress fields. Besides numerical stability, the implicit scheme also
guarantees a smooth interfacial curvature as numerical disturbances on
the interface are automatically relaxed through the iterations. The
polymer melt is modeled as a viscoelastic Oldroyd-B fluid. First, we
compute three benchmark problems to validate various aspects of the
algorithm. Then we use a periodic hexagonal cell to simulate bubble
growth in an isothermal two-dimensional foam, fed by a gaseous blowing
agent initially dissolved in the melt to supersaturation. Results show
two distinct stages: a rapid initial expansion followed by slow
drainage of the liquid film between bubbles driven by capillarity. The
effect of viscoelastic rheology is to enhance the speed of bubble
growth in the first stage, and hinder film drainage in the second.
Finally, we use axisymmetric simulations to investigate the thinning
film between a bubble and a free surface. Melt viscoelasticity is shown
to initially enhance film thinning but later resist it. An important
insight from the simulations is that polymer strain-hardening, namely
the steep increase of elongational viscosity with strain, helps
stabilize the foam structure by suppressing bubble-bubble coalescence
and bubble burst at the foam surface. This confirms prior observations
in foam extrusion experiments.