COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN OF CO-EXTRUDED/COMPOSITE PROFILES AND PRODUCTION TOOLS

The possibility to resort to computational modelling tools on the design phase of products and processing tools, is a clever way to save resources. The huge evolution of the available computational tools has been allowing to cover a wide range of manufacturing processes, which comprise polymer and composites processing. This framework allowed to replace the traditional entirely experimental based trial-and-error design approaches, by exploratory studies done with the support of computational modelling tools, with clear advantages for the final products obtained. In this work we illustrate the numerical based design process with two cases studies related to profile extrusion industry. The main aims of these studies are the following: (i) balance the flow distribution in a co-extrusion die and (ii) improve the design of an extruded profile reinforced with continuous fibers. The work was done with the support of two solvers from the OpenFOAM computational library (Jasak, 2009), interFoam, to design of the co-extrusion die, and solids4Foam (Cardiff, 2018), for the mechanical design of the composite profile. These studies are being undertaken in a broader R&D project leaded by SOPREFA, which integrates also the University of Minho, University of Aveiro and the Portuguese Footwear Technological Centre (CTCP). SOPREFA is a well-known Portuguese pool cover and deck manufacturer, and with this project aims to increase its competitiveness, by improving the performance of two currently available products.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was funded by FEDER funds through the COMPETE 2020 Programme and National Funds through FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the projects UIDB/05256/2020/UIDP/05256/2020 and Smart Pool Cover & Deck – Soluções Inovadoras para Piscinas Inteligentes, Seguras e Sustentáveis (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-017656). The authors also acknowledge the support of the computational clusters Search-ON2 (NORTE-07-0162-FEDER-000086) and Minho Advanced Computing Center (MACC).

REFERENCES Cardiff, P., Karač, A., De Jaeger, P., Jasak, H., Nagy, J., Ivanković, A., & Tuković, Ž. (2018). An open-source finite volume toolbox for solid mechanics and fluid-solid interaction simulations. arXiv preprint arXiv:1808.10736. Jasak, H (2009). International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering 1, 89-94.