Method and Apparatus for Describing the Statistical Orientation Distribution of Particles in a Simulation of a Mould Filling Process

Apparatus for optimizing injection molding by simulating an injection molding process with a suspension that is formed by a solvent containing a large number of non-spherical particles and calculating orientation statistics of non-spherical particles on a macroscopic level comprising:

• means for specifying a mold cavity, which forms at least part of a simulation domain;
• means for providing a digital representation of the simulation domain;
• means for forming a mesh with a plurality of computational cells by subdividing or discretizing at least part of the simulation domain;
• means for specifying boundary conditions;
• means for setting initial conditions;
• means for solving the balance equations for mass, momentum and energy for at least a portion of the cells of the simulation domain to obtain fluid flow, heat flow and mass transfer at a macroscopic level;
• means for solving nonspherical particle orientation dynamic equations based at least partly on the results of the solved balance equations to thereby determine changes in the nonspherical particle orientation at a macroscopic level as function of space and time, wherein the non-spherical particle orientation is described statistically by a distribution function;
• wherein the distribution function is approximated by non-spherical particle orientation tensors of increasing order and the 4th order orientation tensor is computed as a function of the 2nd order tensor using a stabilized hybrid closure approximation;
• and
• means for presenting data in human readable form corresponding to characteristics of the simulated molded part.

A method for optimizing injection molding by calculating orientation statistics of non-spherical particles on a macroscopic level for simulating an injection molding process with a suspension that is formed by a solvent containing a large number of non-spherical particles comprising the steps:

• specifying a mold cavity, which forms at least part of a simulation domain
• providing a digital representation of the simulation domain;
• forming a mesh with a plurality of computational cells by subdividing or discretizing at least part of the simulation domain;
• specifying boundary conditions;
• setting initial conditions;
• solving the balance equations for mass, momentum and energy for at least a portion of the cells of the simulation domain to obtain fluid flow, heat flow and mass transfer at a macroscopic level;
• solving nonspherical particle orientation dynamic equations based at least partly on the results of the solved balance equations to thereby determine changes in the nonspherical particle orientation at a macroscopic level as function of space and time, wherein the non-spherical particle orientation is described statistically by a distribution function;
• wherein the distribution function is approximated by non-spherical particle orientation tensors of increasing order and the 4th order orientation tensor is computed as a function of the 2nd order tensor using a stabilized hybrid closure approximation;
• and
• presenting data in human readable form corresponding to characteristics of the simulated molded part.