A Hybrid Modelling Approach to Predict the Energetic Behavior of Corrugated Pipe Manufacturing Process

Description

Corrugated plastics pipes offer both higher stiffness and flexibility, while simultaneously requiring less material than rigid pipes. Rising commodity prices force pipe manufacturers to produce their high-quality corrugated pipes with less material input. Evidently, the pipe temperature in conjunction with the wall thickness and its distribution substantially impact the mechanical properties in product use. Therefore, optimizing the wall thickness distribution as well as the energy flow while corrugating step, particularly the cooling of the corrugated pipe, plays a crucial role in corrugator design. In a corrugator, after initial pipe extrusion, the grooves and ridges on the outer surface of the soft pipe are formed by a series of moving cooled mold blocks with a caterpillar-like movement and supported by vacuum from outside and pressurized air from inside. Modeling and simulating thermal energy flow during the corrugated pipe extrusion steps is a fundamental preliminary stage in the development of effective cooling solutions for the corrugator. Therefore, a hybrid modelling approach is employed in this research work, combining classical numerical modelling with ANSYS Polyflow – Mechanical coupling and heuristic-based data modeling. Symbolic regression models are developed based on a comprehensive parametric design study predicting the cycle time for the inflation process, the demolding temperature of the pipe and the dissipated energy in the entire pipe cooling process each of for a multitude of corrugated pipe designs. These models may be used for structural analysis of pipes and mold block design, as well as optimization of (i) wall thickness distribution, (ii) cooling of corrugated pipes, and (iii) corrugator performance. In general, reducing material need and processing energy without losing mechanical performance saves resources and fosters sustainability of corrugated pipes.

Period	01 Oct 2024
Event title	European Regional Meeting of the Polymer Processing Society, PPS-2024
Event type	Conference
Location	SpainShow on map