Computer Simulation of Bubble-Growth Phenomena in Foaming

Abstract

This paper discusses the research conducted to achieve an accurate bubble-growth model and simulation scheme to describe precisely the bubble-growth phenomena that occur in polymeric foaming. Using the accurately measured thermophysical and rheological properties of polymer/gas mixtures (i.e., the solubility, the diffusivity, the surface tension, the viscosity, and the relaxation time) as the inputs for computer simulation, the growth profiles for bubbles nucleated at different times were predicted and carefully compared to experimentally observed data obtained from batch foaming simulation with online visualization. A polystyrene/carbon dioxide (PS/CO2) system is used herein as a case example. It was verified that the cell-growth model is capable of thoroughly depicting the growth behaviors of bubble nuclei nucleated under varying processing conditions without using any fitting parameter. These results indicate that the established model accounts for most of the physics behind the bubble-growth phenomena. Furthermore, the effects of the aforementioned thermophysical and rheological parameters on the cell-growth dynamics were demonstrated by a series of sensitivity studies.