An inverse problem by boundary element method

Boundary Element Methods (BEM) have been established as useful and powerful tools in a wide range of engineering applications, e.g. Brebbia et al. In this paper, we report a particular three dimensional implementation of a direct boundary integral equation (BIE) formulation and its application to numerical simulations of practical polymer processing operations. In particular, we will focus on the application of the present boundary element technology to simulate an inverse problem in plastics processing.by extrusion. The task is to design profile extrusion dies for plastics. The problem is highly non-linear due to material viscoelastic behaviours as well as unknown free surface conditions. As an example, the technique is shown to be effective in obtaining the die profiles corresponding to a square viscoelastic extrudate under different processing conditions. To further illustrate the capability of the method, examples of other non-trivial extrudate profiles and processing conditions are also given.