Numerical simulation of mold filling in injection molding using a three‐dimensional finite volume approach

This work presents an implicit finite volume approach to simulate the three‐dimensional mold filling problems encountered during the injection molding. The described numerical model deals with the three‐dimensional isothermal flow of incompressible, high‐viscous Newtonian fluids with moving interfaces. The collocated finite volume method and the SIMPLE segregated algorithm are used to discretize and solve the Navier–Stokes equation. In addition, a bounded compressive high‐resolution differencing scheme is adopted to solve the advection equation to capture the interface on a Eulerian framework. This approach effectively solves the flow field in terms of CPU time and memory storage as well as the complicated three‐dimensional melt front topology. Several two‐ and three‐dimensional examples are presented to validate the presented approach and illustrate its capabilities. This method can more accurately predict the critical three‐dimensional phenomena encountered during mold filling than the existing Hele–Shaw analysis model. The presented numerical approach has been proven to be a highly effective and flexible tool for simulating mold filling problems.