Simulation of spinning processes driven by turbulent air streams

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Nicole Marheineke; Dr. Raimund Wegener
• Subject Area: Fluid Mechanics ; Mathematics
• Term: from 2014 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 251706852

This project aims the simulation of highly dynamic spinning processes being driven by hot turbulent air streams. The meltblowing process gains practical importance since thin fiber jets with diameters less than 0.5 micrometers can be produced that are very suitable for filter materials. In view of the occurring scales and huge jet elongations, its numerical handling is an open challenge and addressed by this project. The modeling framework is provided by asymptotic Cosserat models for the fiber jets and respective exchange models with the air (aerodynamic drag and heat sources). Efficient adaptive strategies for the treatment of large jet elongations are developed and combined with a new sampling method for the turbulence reconstruction in terms of correlated random fields. The meltblowing process in its complexity is approached by a series of simpler scenarios that are already of practical interest by themselves: viscous jets with large elongations in rotational spinning process, elastic fibers affected by turbulent flows in spunbond process, elastic thermal fibers in spunbond process and finally viscous jets with large elongations as well as turbulence and temperature effects in meltblowing process. The scenarios are based on real plants of industrial partners; models and algorithms are validated with given experimental data.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants