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Coupled discrete element and smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of the die filling process

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Abstract

Die filling is an important part of the powder compaction process chain, where defects in the final part can be introduced—or prevented. Simulation of this process is therefore a goal for many part producers and has been studied by some researchers already. In this work, we focus on the influence of the surrounding air on the powder flow. We demonstrate the implementing and coupling of the discrete element method for the granular powder and the smoothed particle hydrodynamics method for the gas flow. Application of the method to the die filling process is demonstrated.

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Notes

  1. The computational cost depends very much on the case of application. Without local refinement, the spatial resolution dx is dictated by the smallest feature that is to be resolved. In the case of 3d simulations, the number of particles scales with d\(x^{3}\). E.g., with the die depth of 30 mm as the smallest feature, this results in approx. 25,000 SPH particles in our simulations. A die of 15 mm width requires already approx. 500,000 SPH particles. For a narrow die of only 6 mm width the number jumps to approx. 6,500,000 SPH particles. The number of DEM particles scales similarly, as the coarse graining is also limited by the smallest geometrical feature. In addition to the number of particles, the computational time step drops for both methods, as the particle size decreases—for the given examples by approx. one order of magnitude.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been funded with budget funds of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) via the German Federation of Industrial Research Associations “Otto von Guericke” e.V. (AiF) (IGF-Nr.: 430 ZBG).

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  1. Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM, 79108, Freiburg, Germany

    Thomas Breinlinger & Torsten Kraft

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  1. Thomas Breinlinger
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  2. Torsten Kraft
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Correspondence to Thomas Breinlinger.

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Breinlinger, T., Kraft, T. Coupled discrete element and smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of the die filling process. Comp. Part. Mech. 3, 505–511 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40571-015-0063-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40571-015-0063-6

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