Multiphase Simulation of Fiber Suspension Flows Using Immersed Boundary Methods

Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2012

Fiber suspension simulations are challenging since they involve transient fluid flow with immersed solid objects subject to large displacements and rotations. In the present work, a beam model in co-rotational formulation is coupled with a fluid solver using immersed boundary methods. The model is used to simulate a fiber in a shear flow and excellent agreement is found with Jeffery's equations. The shapes of fibers deforming in a shear flow are found to be in qualitative agreement with shapes observed in experiments. The flow of a fiber suspension is studied by simulating early paper forming with one-way and semi-two-way coupling. It is found that the flow through the fiber web needs to be resolved in order to predict the retention of fibers in the fiber web.