Numerical simulation of heat transfer and fluid flow of low density polyethylene extrusion process using solar energy*

In this work we examined the necessary conditions to use concentrating solar energy to carry out the melting process of low density polyethylene. The objective is to obtain a strip of recycled material. A numerical simulation of the heat transfer and fluid flow in an extruder will be performed. The recycling process for low density polyethylene is modeled using the conservation of mass, momentum and energy equations for a non-Newtonian fluid. The COMSOL Multiphysics and ANSYS Polyflow software are used to solve the governing equations. Based on the numerical simulation, the effect of the incident radiation, the velocity input and the viscosity of the fluid in the extrusion process are analyzed.