Air Flow in a Pneumatic Splicer by CFD

Abstract

The principle of air-splicing appears to be simple at first sight, but is actually complicated to explain in detail. Direct observation of splice formation is difficult, because the process occurs in the splicer extremely quickly. So far our research on air-splicing has been primarily based on analyzing experimental data only. This paper applies computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to the theoretical study of a pneumatic splicer, with a three-dimensional model developed to predict its performance. Several geometric parameters are varied in 3D CAD for the splicing chamber. The fluid flow in the splicing chamber is turbulent, and the standard k - ε model can be used to simulate it. The performance simulation of the pneumatic splicer is then studied and realized by the combination of UGII, a CAD/CAM software, and FLUENT, a CFD software, which can aid further discussion on applying CFD technology to the study of pneumatic splicing.