USING CFD SIMULATIONS TO IMPROVE SPRAY-BASED MATERIALS PROCESSES

摘要

This paper describes how computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools are being used to guide the development and improvement of spray-based materials processes such as Spray Rolling. CFD simulations can potentially be used to evaluate the relative importance of various mechanisms (e.g spray angle, droplet size and velocity distribution) on spray deposition performance. However, the complexity of the flows relevant to these processes (three-dimensional turbulent multiphase flow with heat transfer) results in prohibitively long computation times that hinder the use of such simulations in process development. We show herein how using a one-way coupling approach reduces the computational requirements while still providing useful and relevant insight into the process. This approach can also be used to reduce the parametric space that needs to be covered experimentally, which could lead to a significant development cost reduction for spray rolling and other spray atomization and deposition processes.