Modeling and Simulation of Sealing Spray Application Using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2011
Multiphase flow simulation using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH)
has gained interest during recent years, mostly due to the inherent
flexibility of the method and the physically rather intuitive
formulation of extra constitutive equations needed when dealing with
for instance non-Newtonian flows. In the work presented here,
simulations based on an SPH model implemented in the flow solver
IBOFlow has been used for simulation of robotic application of sealing
material on a car body. Application of sealing materials is done in
order to prevent water leakage into cavities of the body, and to
reduce noise. In off-line programming of the robots in the automotive
paintshop it is of great interest to predict shape and appearance of
sealing material without having to resort to trial and error
procedures.
The flow of sealing material in the air between applicator and target
(car body) is relatively uncomplicated, as the material mostly moves
at constant velocity until impact on target. The flow of the material
on the target is however more complex, applied material flows at the
target surface due to inertia, gravity and pressure and in order to
predict the appearance of the applied material, flow equations for a
non-Newtonian fluid with an open surface needs to be solved. The
sealing material is both thixotropic and viscoelastic; the material is
shear thinning but needs to be sheared for some time before the
structure of the material is broken down. Conversely, the regain of
structure of the material, and thereby also the increase of viscosity
when shearing is stopped or reduced, is also connected to a delay
time. In the model used, the local viscosity is considered obeying a
first order differential equation where the stationary limit is
determined by a Bingham relation.
The simulation model was built by comparing simulations and
experiments at three different stages of complexity. In the most
fundamental stage the material properties were determined. Using a
rotational rheometer, yield stress, plastic viscosity and thixotropy
time constant was determined and implemented in the simulation model.
To verify the numerical behaviour of the rheology, simulated rheometer
experiments were carried out and compared with the physical
experiments. In the second stage, simulation of application of sealing
material with a stationary hollowcone nozzle was carried out. To
verify the simulations, the resulting thickness, width and shape of
applied material as a function of time were compared to experiments.
In the third stage a moving applicator of the same type was
considered, here thickness width and shape of applied material as a
function of applicator to target distances were compared between
experiments and simulation. At all three stages the number of SPH
particles, /i.e./ grid points, in the simulations was varied in order
to verify that the simulations were resolution independent.
Results of the simulations show good agreement between experiments and
simulations in all stages using no artificial tuning of the models,
that is, all parameters used in the models are based on physical
considerations. Furthermore, simulation time on a desktop computer
indicate that computational power required for industrially relevant
cases is not prohibitively large, for the most complex cases in this
work simulation time did not exceed six hours.
Car body sealing
Free surface flow
Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics
Viscoelastic fluids
Thixotropy