Abstract

Many industrial processes such as fibre spinning, ink-jet printing or film blowing involve the flow of viscoelastic liquids and the deformation of their fluid surface. Understanding the detailed flow patterns of these flow configurations is crucial for the optimisation of these industrial processes. Here, computer simulations can aid and complement experimental studies of these flow problems.

However, the numerical simulation of these industrial processes in general and for viscoelastic fluids in particular is far from being trivial and a highly active area of current research. The main challenges facing the development of efficient solution methods can be attributed to:

1. the solution of a non-linear set of equations that describe the viscoelastic fluid,

2. the need for a suitable and accurate representation of the fluid surface.

In this talk, we will discuss different numerical methods to address these challenges. In particular, we will introduce stabilisationtechniques for Oldroyd-B and Giesekus fluids as well as compare fluid surface tracking techniques such as ALE and unfitted finite element methods. We will explore strengths and weaknesses of these different discretisation methods in a range of flow configurations such as extrudate swell and filament stretching.