Paint Dip-in and Drain-out Analysis for Off-road Applications Using Low Fidelity Versatile Multi-Phase Simulation Practices

In complex manufacturing processes, reliable simulation tools are essential to supplement expensive prototyping and physical testing, optimizing the design stage efficiently. The manufacturing industry seeks solutions for e-coating, which involves optimizing design parameters like tank dimensions, part trajectory, line speed, and geometrical details. New generation CFD tools, such as Creo Flow Analysis (CFA), offer high accuracy, efficient workflows, and short computational times. The goal is to gain insights into how design parameters affect the process and optimize them. CFA provides powerful Volume of Fraction (VOF) multiphase simulation techniques along with body motions in a user-friendly process, enabling quick verification of painting processes or part designs. Surface coating protects industrial products from corrosion and other environmental influences. Electrophoretic coating (e-coating) is a surface engineering process used to coat metallic components. The paint deposition process has been studied using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to predict coating effectiveness and determine over/under painting phenomena. The VOF model in Creo Flow Analysis describes impact phenomena on the wall. The process identifies uncoated areas and paint accumulation due to model orientation during dip-in or dip-out or design challenges. Traditional CFD tools take significant time, from weeks to months, to complete one study. With advanced right fidelity modeling techniques in CFA, timelines are reduced to weeks and days. This innovative approach demonstrates high business impact by enabling decisions on dip-in and dip-out speeds to improve painting process speed or paint quality. This article explores the paint dip-in and dip-out process and showcases CFA's virtual analysis capabilities in simulating and optimizing fluid-dynamic aspects along with comparison of CFA results with traditional high fidelity CFD tools results.