Modeling and simulation of electrophoretic deposition coatings

Abstract

Electrophoreticdeposition (EPD) coating is one of the key processes in automotive manufacturing. Here, car bodies are moved through a tank of paint in which electrically charged paint particles lead to a successive increase of the paint film thickness on the car body. This paint film is used to protect the car body from corrosion. However, in order to properly protect the car body from corrosion, it is required that the whole surface area is covered by a certain paint film thickness. To ensure that, there is a high demand for an accurate simulation tool, which not only avoids the need for expensive prototypes but also allows to detect potential problems in early development stages. To that end, in this work, we are proposing a novel simulation tool based on the finite difference method (FDM). The proposed tool considers exact physics and employs a dedicated overset grid methodology to allow for a high resolution discretization of entire car bodies. Based on this overset grid scheme, the whole domain is modeled in a coarse resolution, whereas the space around the car body is discretized using a high resolution grid. Employing this scheme eventually allows for an accurate and efficient simulation of industrial EPD coating processes. Experimental evaluations based on an analytical analysis and an industrial scenario confirm the accuracy and scalability of the proposed methods.