ME-542 Manufacturing with Non-metallic Materials

Extrusion Simulation Using LabView

Pressure vs Flowrate

Controls and displays within this section of the interface deal with the output of the Die and Extruder equations, and the accuracy of the calculations.

P vs Q	Displays the Pressure versus Flow Rate graph at the current settings. The graph automatically scales in an attempt to keep the Die and Extruder intersection in view, however it doesn't always do a very good job of this. Turning off "Auto-Scale" on the graph may yield a better display in some situations.
Graph Steps	Adjusts the number of steps used when plotting the Die and Extruder graphs. The value of this control affects the accuracy of the Flow Rate and Pressure displays. Valid values for this control are in the range from 2 to infinity, with the default being 100. Be forewarned that large values will considerably slow down calculations without a corresponding increase in accuracy.
Graph Error	Displays the error in calculating the Die and Extruder intersection. This value depends almost entirely on the Graph Steps setting, and represents the difference between the lowest and highest pressure value found during the last calculation. A zero value in this display means that the exact point of intersection was found. A non-zero value means that there was some error in the calculation. The importance of this error depends on the numerical values of Flow Rate and Pressure. Increasing Graph Steps will lower the Graph Error value, at the expense of increased calculation time.
Flow Rate	Displays the Flow Rate at the Die and Extruder graph intersection. The value displayed here is the flow rate attainable at the optimum operating point for the conditions entered in the other sections.
Pressure	Displays the Pressure at the Die and Extruder graph intersection. The value displayed here is the pressure attainable at the optimum operating point for the conditions entered in the other sections.