Experimental validation of Numerical simulations of Air drawing Mathematical model of Polymers in Spunbonding Nonwoven process

The air drawing model of polyethylene terephthalate(PET) polymer and the model of the air jet flow field in spunbonding process are founded. The air jet flow field model is simulated by means of the finite difference method. The numerical simulation computation results of distributions of the air velocity and air temperature match quite well with the experimental data. The air drawing model of polymer is solved with the help of the distributions of the air velocity measured by a Particle Image Velocimetry. The predicted filament fiber diameters agree with the experimental data well. It can be concluded that the higher initial air temperature can yield finer filament fiber diameter, and the higher initial air velocity can produce the finer fiber diameter as well. The experimental results show that the agreement between the results and experimental data is very better, which verifies the reliability of these models. Also, they reveal great prospects for this work in the field of computer assisted design (CAD) of spunbonding process.