Computer Modeling of Fiber Motion in High-Speed Airflow

Abstract

High-speed airflow is widely used in many processes in today's textile industry. Even though the interactions between fibers and airflows have attracted many researchers' interest, there have been few published studies that focus on the computer modeling of fiber motion in airflow fields.

The present research was aimed at developing a model that can effectively simulate the interactions between fibers and airflows, thus providing clearer understanding of the behavior of textile fibers in certain processing machines.

A three-dimensional model of an aerodynamic component of a textile machine was developed. A commercial computation fluid dynamics (CFD) software package was used to compute the airflow field of this model and the results were analyzed to study the airflow field's characteristics. Resultant data were used as input for the fiber movement model by using a one-way coupling method.

The mathematical model of fiber movement was constructed by integrating the governing equations with a model that describes the fiber configurations. A numerical method was developed to solve these equations and visualization programs were established to illustrate and animate the simulated fiber movements. The results obtained were studied and compared under different initial and boundary conditions.

Fiber bending and twisting properties were integrated into the computer model. Their influences on the fiber movement were simulated and analyzed.

The present research successfully demonstrates the effectiveness of computer modeling for studying the fiber motion in high-speed airflow. It can provide better understanding of fiber behavior in airflow fields and its potential and prospect in the research of textile processes, in which airflow plays an important role, are very promising.