Approximate methods for analysing the cold drawing of polymeric fibres and films

Approximate methods for analysing steady-state cold drawing processes in polymer forming are discussed. These methods are applied to both axisymmetric and plane-strain drawing. The cold drawing process is associated with steady-state neck propagation along the specimen. Modifications are introduced in the approximate steady-state analysis which reflect the neck initiation and localization phases prior to steady-state drawing. This is accomplished without resorting to an analysis of the entire load–deformation history of the process. Finite element results are also presented and compared with those of the proposed approximate analyses. These comparisons show the approximate analysis to be an extremely efficient and quite accurate computational scheme for the analysis of steady-state cold drawing processes.