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pps proceeding
Symposium: S19 - Honorary Session: Professor Han E. H. Meijer (By Invitation Only)
Oral Presentation
 
 

Long flexible fiber orientation simulation in squeeze flow

Meirson Gleb (1)*, Hrymak Andrew N. (1)

(1) University of Western Ontario - Ontario - Canada

The mechanical properties of fiber reinforced polymers are highly dependent on fiber orientation. There are many models for fiber orientation calculations available in the literature, however, most of them address the short and rigid fibers and the models which are developed for long flexible fibers are usually implemented in a simple shear flow case. The last stage of LFT (Long Fiber Thermoplastics) preparation is press molding. In this process the flow inside the mold could be characterized as squeeze flow and its parameters are crucial for fiber orientation. Long flexible fiber was simulated in a rheometric squeeze flow using a model with elements from the "Bead-Chain" model which treats the fiber as a collection of beads and the "Rod-Chain" model which unites several beads into rods to reduce calculations. In the literature these models are found to be implemented mostly in the simple shear flow case[1,2]. The velocity field of a squeeze flow is calculated using analytical solution[3]. Reference 1.S.Yamamoto, T.Matsuoka, A method of dynamic simulation of rigid and flexible fibers in flow field. Journal of chemical physics, 98, 644 (1993). 2.G.Wang, W.Yu, C.Zhou, Optimization of the rod chain model to simulate the motions of a long flexible fiber in simple shear flows, European journal of mechanics, 26, 337-347 (2006). 3.P.S.Gupta, A.S.Gupta, Squeezing flow between parallel plates, Elsevier Sequoia, 45, 177-185 (1977).