Optimizations of Coat-Hanger Die, Using Constraint Optimization Algorithm and Taguchi Method.

Polymer extrusion is one of the most important manufacturing methods used today. A flat die, is commonly used to extrude thin thermoplastics sheets. If the channel geometry in a flat die is not designed properly, the velocity at the die exit may be perturbed, which can affect the thickness across the width of the die. The ultimate goal of this work is to optimize the die channel geometry in a way that a uniform velocity distribution is obtained at the die exit. While optimizing the exit velocity distribution, we have coupled three‐dimensional extrusion simulation software Rem3D®, with an automatic constraint optimization algorithm to control the maximum allowable pressure drop in the die; according to this constraint we can control the pressure in the die (decrease the pressure while minimizing the velocity dispersion across the die exit). For this purpose, we investigate the effect of the design variables in the objective and constraint function by using Taguchi method. In the second study we use the global response surface method with Kriging interpolation to optimize flat die geometry. Two optimization results are presented according to the imposed constraint on the pressure. The optimum is obtained with a very fast convergence (2 iterations). To respect the constraint while ensuring a homogeneous distribution of velocity, the results with a less severe constraint offers the best minimum.