Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Simulation software for molten fiber flow

Status
Not open for further replies.

HilaryE

Bioengineer
Mar 13, 2014
51
0
0
PL
Hi
I am looking for the best software for the molten fiber flow process simulation (e.g. Ansys-Polyflow, CFD, …). I would be grateful for any suggestions.

I would like to simulate the process taking place inside the spray head as well as under it (possibly also turbulence).

I attach to this post a simple sketch presenting the scenario for the simulation. Please also find below more detailed description of the simulation case.
1. Application- melt-blown non-woven polypropylene fiber applied on a table. This process creates a layer of the blown material.
2. Geometry- please refer to the sketch sent attached. The sketch presents the cross-section of the tooling (so called spray head) which consists of the three major parts: the two side metal strips (over 1 meter long each) and one centre metal strip (also over 1 meter long, with a milled narrow deep slot and an array of hundreds of small holes - 0.3mm o.d. each, 0.5mm hole pitch).
3. Boundary conditions- as presented in attached drawing and described below.
4. Material data- polypropylene (PP) homopolymer (intended for fibre appliation). Molecular weight distribution - narrow.
5. Viscosity- varies with the polypropylene temperature drop which takes place in the process described in the attached sketch.
6. Objective-
-Step 1- Create simulation of the process taking place inside spray head and just below it (see attached drawing). The spray head geometry will be limited to the short section length involving only one 0.3mm hole and the overall length of 0.5mm (instead of simulating full length spray head with all its holes).
- Step 2- Validate the model created in step 1. Model validation basis has not been determined yet.
- Step 3- Optimise the process taking place inside and outside (below) spray head, through its design change and process parameters modification (such as molten fibre pressure or temperature) to: stabilize process, increase efficiency, etc.
It is also possible that in some stage the 'simulated' spray head geometry can be extended to two or more 0.3mm holes (e.g. for the turbulence simulation which takes place under the spray head).

I intend to use Polyflow/Fluent provided by Ansys. However, when I do reading of the available literature I learn that a lot of researchers, in the area of molten fiber flow, use CFD software (Gambit and Fluent).
Please help and send your opinions.
Thank you.
 
 http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=6c10ce5b-5a43-443c-b5de-48230d6fac17&file=Process.jpg
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top