Heat Transfer Enhancement in Polymer Extrusion via a Novel Eccentric Rotor Extruder With Dynamic Meshing

ABSTRACT

To clarify the heat‐transfer mechanism associated with the traveling‐wave boundary generated by a novel eccentric rotor extruder (ERE), a two‐dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation with experimental validation was conducted to investigate the flow and thermal characteristics within the ERE. The simulations reveal a hot melt impact effect arising from the periodic extrusion within the cavity. This effect disrupts both the hydrodynamic and thermal boundary layers, significantly augmenting heat and mass exchange. The heat transfer coefficient exhibited remarkable insensitivity to barrel temperature, increasing by a mere 2.4 W/(m ²  K) per 10°C rise, suggesting that the heat transfer enhancement is primarily flow‐induced, rather than temperature‐driven. The model was verified through experimental results. This work offers valuable insights into structural design and process optimization of the new polymer molding method.