Numerical simulation of mold filling in injection molding using a three‐dimensional finite volume approach

This work presents an implicit finite volume approach to simulate the three-dimensional mold filling problems encountered during the injection molding. The described numerical model deals with the three-dimensional isothermal flow of incompressible, high-viscous Newtonian fluids with moving interfaces. The collocated finite volume method and the SIMPLE segregated algorithm are used to discretize and solve the Navier–Stokes equation. In addition, a bounded compressive high-resolution differencing scheme is adopted to solve the advection equation to capture the interface on a Eulerian framework. This approach effectively solves the flow field in terms of CPU time and memory storage as well as the complicated three-dimensional melt front topology. Several two- and three-dimensional examples are presented to validate the presented approach and illustrate its capabilities. This method can more accurately predict the critical three-dimensional phenomena encountered during mold filling than the existing Hele–Shaw analysis model. The presented numerical approach has been proven to be a highly effective and flexible tool for simulating mold filling problems. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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