Water Simulation Of Aluminum Foaming Process

Room temperature three-dimensional static and dynamic simulations of bubble formation process were conducted in a polyvinyl alcohol solution in order to predict foam size of a closed cell aluminum foam produced by air-foaming aluminum melt. During the simulations, variables which affect liquid flow nature and bubble characteristics were investigated by the numbers.According to the formation and flow of bubbles in the quiescent PVA solution, the static model is established based on the continuous and noncontinuous flow processes of a single bubble flow from the orifice to the top surface of the solution. Moreover, the dynamic model is founded by simply applying the effects of dynamic factors on static model and includes all the geometric, physical and hydro mechanical factors of processing the aluminum foam.The calculated results obtained with the static and dynamic models are capable of accurate predicting the bubble size under varied conditions of processing the closed cell aluminum foam. According to the result of the static and dynamic simulation experiments, the bubble diameter is increased with the air flow rate and air pressure, orifice diameter, liquid depth and volume of the foaming-chamber, and decreased with liquid viscosity and density, number of orifices, shaft speed. Moreover, surface tension has little effect on the bubble diameter.The resulting numerical model of predicting foam size of the closed cell aluminum foam was verified by comparison to the results from practical foaming process at different production conditions, and the predicted foam size is in good agreement with the experimentally determined ones.