Numerical simulation for exploring the effect of viscosity on single-screw extrusion process of propellant

Single-screw extrusion process of propellant has the characteristics of multiple accidents, complicated rheological parameters and difficult measurement of real-time conditions, however, the process details can be reproduced by simulation conveniently and intuitively. In this paper, the POLYFLOW simulation platform was used to model and analyze the single-screw extrusion process of propellant through the application of Finite Element Analysis on extrusion of plastic. The distributions and changes of viscosity in extrusion process, which were taken as the starting point to study the threshold and distribution of pressure, temperature and other sensitive parameters, were obtained. The simulation shows that the risk at the screw edge is higher because of severe mixing and plasticizing process, and the viscous heating is up to 1.4 x 10(5) W . m(-3). Parameters under different speed conditions were studied as well, which provide guidance for the coordination of security and economy in production. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).