Use of CFD to Design a Melt Blowing Die

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can play an important role in understanding the flow field below two converging rectangular jets. Each rectangular nozzle has a large length to width ratio, and the nozzles are parallel and very close to each other. This design is used in practical applications to produce polymeric fibers in the process known as melt blowing. In this paper we use turbulence models available in the CFD software Fluent 5.0 to study the detailed flow field. We also use experimental measurements to compare with the simulation results, and we test altemative die designs with the goal of identifying those that perform better.