An Open-Source Framework for Modeling the Evolution of Fiber Orientation

Abstract

Modeling fiber orientation plays a crucial rule in predicting the behaviour of fiber reinforced thermoplastic materials. The equation that governs the evolution of the fiber orientation is hyperbolic in nature and requires handling fourth-order tensors, which are currently unavailable in OpenFOAM® .
The current work explores the possibility of using OpenFOAM® and symbolic computation for modeling the evolution of fiber orientation. For this purpose, a functionObject was programmed to work as a plug-in solver for any OpenFOAM® incompressible flow solver, with the ability to compute the evolution of the second-order orientation tensor in a decoupled manner. Several fiber orientation models and closure relations available in the literature were implemented in the tool, which were verified by comparing their predictions with independent results obtained by numerically integrating the associated governing equations.