Extrusion Process Modeling for Aqueous-Based Ceramic Pastes—Part 2: Experimental Verification

In the Part 1 paper, a constitutive law for the extrusion process of aqueous-based ceramic pastes was created. In the study described herein, a capillary rheometer was used to calibrate the viscosity of an alumina paste, and a single extruder system was used to conduct extrusion experiments to validate the constitutive model. It is shown that the extrusion response time and its change both depend on the amount of air in the extruder and the magnitude of the extrusion force. When the extrusion force is small, the rapid change of extrusion response time gives the extrusion dynamic an apparent quadratic response. When the extrusion force is large, the extrusion response time changes slowly, and is dominated by a first-order response. Air bubble release was observed in some of the experiments. A series of simulation and experimental studies were conducted to validate the predictive capabilities of the constitutive model for both steady-state and transient extrusion force behaviors. Good agreements between the simulation and experimental results were obtained. The experimental results demonstrate that the constitutive model is capable of capturing the characteristics of the highly nonlinear response at low extrusion forces and the air bubble release phenomenon. The numerical studies show that the decrease in the extrusion force during an air bubble release depends on the volume of the air bubble.