APPROACH OF AN AUTOMATIC EXTRUSION DIE OPTIMIZATION

The primary aim of the rheological design of extrusion dies in polymer processing is to obtain an even velocity distribution at the outlet of the die. For a given complex cross-section of a profile, no procedure has yet been found to predict the die geometry with respect to obtaining an even velocity profile at the outlet. Hence the optimization of the geometry has to be done by "trial and error". In this paper a new calculation method is presented which uses a combination of the finite-elementanalysis (FEA) and a flow analysis network (FAN). With the aid of this method it is possible to accelerate the iterative optimization process for the design of profile extrusion dies. Furthermore, this method is combined with an optimization scheme based on the evolution strategy. The result is an algorithm to optimize the flow channels in extrusion dies automatically.