NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF AIRFLOW WITHIN POROUS MATERIAL

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide systems and methods of numerically simulating airflow within porous materials.SOLUTION: An engineering product is represented by a finite element analysis model containing in part porous material with permeability. In each solution cycle of a time-marching simulation, each of the elements of porous material is evaluated with airflow in conjunction with the traditional mechanical response. Each element's volume change results into different air-pore pressure hence a pressure gradient, which in turn is used for airflow calculated in accordance with a fluid seepage law that depends upon permeability of the porous material. Therefore, a more realistic simulation of structural behavior of porous materials is achieved. The volume change and pressure of each element of porous material is evaluated using ideal gas law. A general form of Darcy's law includes user control parameters used for evaluating airflow based on the pressure gradient and permeability.