Transient planar squeeze flow of semi-concentrated fiber suspensions using the Dinh-Armstrong model

Numerical simulations are undertaken for the transient squeeze flow between parallel plates under a constant load. The conservation equations are solved via the finite element method in space and the Crank-Nicolson method in time. The constitutive equation used to describe the semi-concentrated fiber suspension is an integral equation proposed by Dinh and Armstrong for fiber-filled Newtonian liquids. New results are obtained for both random and aligned fibers and for different levels of squeeze force, and these are compared with the corresponding Newtonian ones, which are slightly lower. The fiber orientation in the flow field is also obtained for different points in the material. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.