Film Casting Processes: Simulation and Optimization
T. Goetz (TU Kaiserslautern, Germany) and S. Mesia (Indian Institute of
Technology Madras, India)
We consider a film casting process modelling the production of polymer films used for plastic bags or packing materials. In an isothermal environment, the uni-axial stretching of the film leads to a necking-in, i.e. the film gets thinner along its centerline than at the edges. This raises the question, how should one design the geometry of the nozzle, to obtain a uniform film thickness at the take-up point of the film.
We propose an optimization problem to determine this shape. Numerical simulations show the results of the optimization.