Abstract
Products made of polyurethane foam are manufactured by the chemical reaction of various low-viscosity raw materials and additives. The diversity of different formulations to meet the requirements of the market makes the characterization of their processing and flow properties important for a simple and error-free production. The modeling and simulation of such processes are equally of great importance. This provides additional findings without the expense of real tests and makes it easier to design components. The work described in this paper was carried out against this background. An experimental setup using a rheometer was developed to determine the flow and curing properties of reacting polyurethane foam reproducibly with comparable expansion conditions to industrial processes. The experiment was mathematically modelled to investigate the rheology of reacting polyurethane foams. The mathematical framework consists of coupled, non-linear, partial differential equations for the dynamics and the heat transfer processes in the system. These are solved numerically in 3D using finite volume techniques under adequate physical conditions. The accuracy of two viscosity laws according to the state of the art and their novel combination were investigated in this context. The proposed viscosity model of this study provides accurate results compared to the experiment.
Highlights
Products made of polyurethane (PUR) foam are present everywhere in daily life
An experimental setup using was designed designedin in this work, which is suitable for usinga arheometer rheometer was this work, which is suitable for characterizing the flow andand curing behavior foamformulations
A typical temperature variance for production processes was present within the reacting PUR foam on the other hand
Summary
Products made of polyurethane (PUR) foam are present everywhere in daily life. The plastic is available in low-viscosity starting materials for its manufacturing. Falke et al used a torsion rod made of polyvinylchloride (PVC) as measuring body in a similar experimental setup to that of this paper [12] This was used to analyze and compare different PUR foam formulations with regard to their reaction behavior and foam creation. The filling of complex geometries under physically motivated process conditions can be predicted after the calibration of the model This approach is valuable for foam manufacturers who purchase PUR foam formulations from suppliers that do not provide the exact chemical composition. This study seeks to numerically investigate the influence of the gas volume fraction on the rheology of reacting PUR foams with the aim to validate and improve the existing material models. This adjustment would account for the contribution of gas fraction initial gas creation stage as well as the final gas depletion stage
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