Numerical Simulation of Polyurethane Foaming Process Using Finite Point Method

Abstract

For the numerical simulation of fluid mechanics problems in complex geometries, the use of the classical grid methods such as the finite element method and the finite volume method can give rise to several problems related to the deformation of the mesh. In this work, a meshfree Lagrangian method is used to avoid these problems. This method called Finite Point Method (FPM) has been developed by Kuhnert. It consists in representing the fluid domain by a set of particles. The efficiency of this method is pointed by studying the problem of polyurethane foaming. To do so, we have adopted a theoretical model describing the contribution of the chemical kinetics and the rheological coupling characterizing such process. This coupling is displayed through the dependency of the fluid viscosity to the evolution of the temperature and the chemical reactions present during the foaming process. The expansion of the mixture is governed by the front velocity which is calculated by solving the Navier-Stokes equations. Compared to the experimental results for polyurethane foaming process in a conical beaker, the numerical results using the FPM code are acceptable.