Open Access
ARTICLE
A CFD-DEM-Wear Coupling Method for Stone Chip Resistance of Automotive Coatings with a Rigid Connection Particle Method for Non-Spherical Particles
Jiacheng Qian1, Chenqi Zou1, Mengyan Zang1,*, Shunhua Chen2,3,*, Makoto Tsubokura4
1
School of Mechanical & Automotive Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510641, China
2
School of Marine Engineering and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, 510275, China
3
Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhuhai, 528315, China
4
RIKEN Center for Computational Science, Kobe, 650-0047, Japan
* Corresponding Authors: Mengyan Zang. Email: ; Shunhua Chen. Email:
Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2022, 133(2), 251-280. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmes.2022.020738
Received 09 December 2021; Accepted 22 February 2022; Issue published 21 July 2022
Abstract
The stone chip resistance performance of automotive coatings has attracted increasing attention in academic and
industrial communities. Even though traditional gravelometer tests can be used to evaluate stone chip resistance
of automotive coatings, such experiment-based methods suffer from poor repeatability and high cost. The main
purpose of this work is to develop a CFD-DEM-wear coupling method to accurately and efficiently simulate
stone chip behavior of automotive coatings in a gravelometer test. To achieve this end, an approach coupling an
unresolved computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method and a discrete element method (DEM) are employed
to account for interactions between fluids and large particles. In order to accurately describe large particles, a
rigid connection particle method is proposed. In doing so, each actual non-spherical particle can be approximately
described by rigidly connecting a group of non-overlapping spheres, and particle-fluid interactions are simulated
based on each component sphere. An erosion wear model is used to calculate the impact damage of coatings based
on particle-coating interactions. Single spherical particle tests are performed to demonstrate the feasibility of the
proposed rigid connection particle method under various air pressure conditions. Then, the developed CFD-DEMwear model is applied to reproduce the stone chip behavior of two standard tests, i.e., DIN 55996-1 and SAE-J400-
2002 tests. Numerical results are found to be in good agreement with experimental data, which demonstrates the
capacity of our developed method in stone chip resistance evaluation. Finally, parametric studies are conducted
to numerically investigate the influences of initial velocity and test panel orientation on impact damage of
automotive coatings.
Keywords
Cite This Article
Qian, J., Zou, C., Zang, M., Chen, S., Tsubokura, M. (2022). A CFD-DEM-Wear Coupling Method for Stone Chip Resistance of Automotive Coatings with a Rigid Connection Particle Method for Non-Spherical Particles.
CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, 133(2), 251–280.