Induced anisotropy in foams forming processes: modelling and simulation

The numerical modelling of forming processes involving the flow of foams requires taking into account the different problem scales. Thus, in industrial applications a macroscopic approach is suitable, whereas the macroscopic flow parameters depend on the cellular structure: porosity, size, shape and orientation of the cells, cellular walls properties, etc. Moreover, the shape and orientation of the cells are induced by the flow during the foam expansion (induced anisotropy). This work focuses on this topic, covering both the mechanical and the numerical modelling. In particular we will analyse two kind of numerical approaches: the first one involving a fixed mesh of the whole domain (which induces some numerical difficulties related to the advection of the free surface and other fields). The second approach lies in the use of a meshless technique which allows accurately both fields advection and flow front tracking, without a mesh support. The fundamentals of this work are based on some of our former works cited in the references section.