PAPER PHYSICS
M u lti p h ase s i m u l ati o n of fi ber s u s pe n s i o n fl ows u s i n g
i m mersed bo u n dary meth ods
E . Sven ning, A . Mark, F. Edelvi k, E . Glatt, S . Rief, A . Wiegmann, L . Marti nsson, R . Lai, M . F redlund, and U . Nyman
KEYWORDS: Fluid Structure Interaction, Immersed
Boundary Methods, Paper forming, Jeffery Orbits
SUMMARY: Fiber suspension simulations are
challenging since they involve transient fluid flow with
immersed solid obj ects subj ect to large displacements and
rotations. In the present work, a beam model in eo­
rotational formulation is coupled with a fluid solver using
immersed boundary methods. The model is used to
simulate a fiber in a shear flow and excellent agreement
is found with Jeffery's equations. The shapes of fibers
deforming in a shear flow are found to be in qualitative
agreement with shapes observed in experiments.
The flow of a fiber suspension is studied by simulating
early paper forming with one-way and semi-two-way
coupling. It is found that the flow through the fiber web
needs to be resolved in order to predict the retention of
fibers in the fiber web.
ADDRESSES OF THE AUTHORS :
Erik Svenning ( erik.svenning@fcc.chalmers.se ) ,
Andreas Mark (andreas.mark@fcc.chalmers.se) and
Fredrik Edelvik (fredrik.edelvik@fcc.chalmers.se)
Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre, Chalmers Science Park,
SE-4 1 2 88 Gothenburg, Sweden
Erik Glatt ( erik.glatt@itwm.fraunhofer.de ) , Stefan Rief
(stefan.rief@itwm.fraunhofer.de) and Andreas
Wiegmann (andreas.wiegmann@itwm.fraunhofer.de)
Fraunhofer ITWM, Fraunhofer-Piatz I , D-67663
Kaiserslautem, Germany. Lars Martinsson
(lars.martinsson@albint.com) Albany International, Box
5 1 0, SE-3 0 I 80 Halmstad, Sweden. Ron Lai
(ron.lai@akzonobel.com) Eka Chemicals, SE-445 80
Bohus, Sweden. Mats Fredlund
(mats.fredlund@storaenso.com): Stora Enso Packaging,
Box 9090, SE-650 09 Karlstad, Sweden. Ulf Nyman
(ulf.nyman@tetrapak.com): Tetra Pak Packaging
Solutions AB, Ruben Rausings gata, SE-22 1 86 Lund,
Sweden.
Corresponding author: Erik Svenning
Fiber suspension simu1ations are challenging since they
involve transient fluid flow with many immersed solid
obj ects subj ect to large displacements. Understanding the
phenomena occuring on the length scale of a single fiber
requires Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS). The flow
around every fiber is then resolved by using a fluid grid
which is smaller than the fiber diameter, but to obtain
reasonable simulation times still larger than the smallest
turbulent eddies. This means that the fluid force on the
fiber can be computed by numerically integrating the
traction vector over the fiber surface. This is in contrast
to the commonly used approach, where the fibers are not
resolved and the fluid forces on the fibers are estimated
from a semi-empirical drag correlation.
1 8 4 Nordic Pulp and Paper Research Journal Vol27 no.2/2012
Numerical approaches that rely on a weak coupling
between fluid and fibers often have stability problems in
particular when the fibers are buoyant. A strong coupling
can be realized through the use of Immersed Boundary
Methods (IBM) that are well suited for these types of
applications, since they allow the flow around the
immersed obj ects to be resolved without the need of a
body-fitted mesh. The original method developed by
Peskin ( 1 977) was explicitly formulated and only first­
order accurate in space. To increase accuracy and
stability (Majumdar et al. 200 I) developed an implicitly
formulated second-order accurate method, which had
some problems with mass conservation and pressure
oscillations. To resolve these problems, Mark and van
Wachem (2008) and Mark et al. (20 1 0) developed a
second-order accurate hybrid IBM.
The IBM has previously been used to study the flow of
fibers and particles suspended in a fluid. Stockie and
Green ( 1 998) performed 2D simulations of flexible fibers
in a shear flow with an explicitly formulated IBM. 3D
simulations of a single fiber in a shear flow were later
performed by Stockie (2002). Kang and Suh (20 1 1 ) used
the IBM to study the motion of magnetic particles in a
flow. An explicit, discrete-forcing-based IBM was used
to enforce the immersed boundary conditions.
Different methods for simulation of fiber suspensions
are described in the literature. Yamamoto and Matsuoka
( 1 994) mode led a fiber as a chain of spheres connected
with springs. Ross and Klingenberg ( 1 997) attempted to
reduce computation times by modeling a fiber as a chain
of prolate spheroids, thus allowing a fiber to be mode led
with fewer elongated bodies. Lindstrom (2008)
developed a model where a fiber is treated as a chain of
rigid rods and used the model to study paper forming.
This model includes contacts between fibers as well as
two-way coupling between the fibers and the fluid. The
model proposed by Lindstrom (2008) is not based on a
beam theory, the derivation starts with Newton's second
law and expressions for the bending moments in the
j oints are inserted. Many finite element models based on
beam theory exist and several of them take geometric
and/or material nonlinearities into account, see e.g. the
work of Simo and Vu-Quoc ( 1 988) and lbrahimbegovic
and Mikdad ( 1 998) for fully non linear beam models or
the eo-rotational method proposed by Omid and Rankin
( 1 9 9 1 ) for a way to include geometric nonlinearities.
A special case of fiber suspension flow frequently
encountered in the literature is the motion of non­
spherical particles in shear flow. The motion of
ellipsoidal particles in turbulent shear flow was studied
numerically by Mortensen et al. (2008) and Marchioli et
al. (20 1 0), among others. Here we restrict our attention to
laminar shear flow, where an analytical expression for the
motion of ellipsoidal particles was derived by Jeffery
( 1 922). It was shown by Harris and Pittman ( 1 975) that

the motion of cylindrical particles also can be described
with Jeffery's equations if a semi-empirical correction to
the equivalent aspect ratio is introduced. Cylindrical
particles in shear flow have also been studied
numerically, see e.g. the simulations performed by Ross
and Klingenberg ( 1 997) and Lindstrom (2008).
Furthermore, Moses et al. (200 1 ) presented experiments
where the orientation of a single fiber is given as a
function of time. Experiments have also been performed
by Forgacs and Mason ( 1 959), where flexible fibers are
deformed by the fluid forces, resulting in characteristic
deformed fiber shapes. Therefore, the motion of a fiber in
a shear flow is interesting to study when developing new
models for fiber suspension flows.
A particular application of the proposed framework is
early paper forming. Complex physical phenomena occur
during paper forming due to the interaction between
forming fabrics, fibers, fillers and fines as well as
chemicals added to the suspension. The aim of this work
is to contribute to an increased understanding of the paper
forming process by making it possible to perform
simulations with thousands of fibers laying down onto a
forming fabric. To the best of the authors ' knowledge,
simulations with this level of detail have previously not
been possible. Such simulations could contribute to the
development of improved paper products, because the
orientation and distribution of fibers during this step have
a large influence on the final paper quality.
Theory
The simulation framework is described in detail by Mark
et al. (20 1 1b) and a summary is given here for
completeness. Jeffery's equations are presented, allowing
for a comparison between simulations and analytical
solutions in the results section.
F l u i d model
The motion of an incompressible fluid is governed by the
Navier-Stokes equations:
· I/ = 0,
o1i - 2-
PJ - + p " · p+p
-
J
11 11 ,
ar
= -
where u is the fluid velocity, p1 is the fluid density,
is the pressure and f1 is the dynamic viscosity. The CFD
software IBOFiow (Immersed Boundary Octree Flow
Solver) uses the finite volume method to solve the
Navier-Stokes equations and the IBM is used to model
the presence of moving obj ects in the flow. The Navier­
Stokes equations are solved in a segregated way and the
SIMPLEC method (Doormaal and Raithby 1 9 84) is used
to couple the pressure and the velocity fields. All
variables are stored in a eo-located arrangement and the
pressure weighted flux interpolation proposed by Rhie
and Chow ( 1 983) is used to suppress pressure
oscillations.
The forming fabrics used in the paper forming simula­
tions are represented numerically by voxelizations. The
GeoDict software is used to generate the voxelizations
PAPER PHYSICS
from CAD files provided by Albany International,
Halmstad, Sweden.
Fi ber model
Beam model
The fibers are modeled as slender beams with hollow
elliptical cross section. The strong form of the equations
( )
of motion for a beam is given by Crisfield et al. ( 1 997):
fext + - §
ak a
.f. n t '
- -
-
at ax -
=
( § f.nt )
·
(§ )
[2 ]
aii _ a;: - a _
- mext + X
at ax - ax -
= - · + - · mint '
Followin!!; their notation, k io th " l in""r momentum and
ii is the angular momentum. i�xt is the externally applied
body force and mexl is the externally applied body
moment, g is the transformation from local to global
coordinates, �nt is the internal force in a point and mint
is the internal moment in a point.
Eqs. [2} are solved with the Finite Element Method
(FEM) and large rotations are included with the eo­
rotational formulation derived by Nour-Omid and Rankin
( 1 988, 1 99 1 ) . The contacts are handled with a penalty
method. Elastic/inelastic contact is taken into account as
proposed by Harmon (20 1 0) and friction is treated with a
regularization adopted from Wriggers (2006). The
implementation is described in Svenning (20 1 1 ).
3D Finite Element model
For cases with few fibers, a fiber can also be modeled
with volume elements. Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre
(FCC) has an in-house 30 Finite Element code capable of
handling transient problems involving finite rotations and
finite strains. The code is based on a Total Lagrangian
formulation, see e.g. (Belytschko et al. 2000).
F l u id-structu re cou p l i n g
The fluid-structure coupling can be realized with two­
way coupling, one-way coupling or a combination of
one-way and two-way coupling. These three possibilities
[1]
are described in the following.
Two-way coupling
p When two-way coupling is used, the flow around every
fiber is resolved and the fluid force on each element is
evaluated by integrating the traction vector over the
element surface numerically. In the present work, the
hybrid IBM derived by Mark et al. (20 1 0) is used to
resolve the flow around immersed obj ects in the flow.
One-way coupling
When one-way coupling is used, it is assumed that the
flow is unaffected by the fibers. A drag correlation is
used to estimate the fluid force on each element and the
fiber motion is tracked through a steady velocity field.
Semi-two-way coupling
In simulations of paper forming, it is computationally
expensive to resolve the flow around every fiber. Since
the paper fibers are buoyant, a fiber in the free stream far
away from the forming fabric will follow the fluid
closely. In a low-concentration, well dispersed
suspension, such a fiber can be tracked with one-way
Nordic Pulp and Paper Research Journal Vol27 no.2/2012 1 85
PAPER PHYSICS

coupling with only minor loss of accuracy. However, a
fiber resting on the forming fabric will disturb the flow
even though it is buoyant. Therefore, the flow around the
fibers in the fiber web on the forming fabric must be
resolved. Based on this reasoning, it is sufficient to
resolve the flow around fibers in the fiber web on the
forming fabric, but to use one-way coupling to track the
fibers in the free stream. In the following, this will be
referred to as semi-two-way coupling.
Jeffery's eq uations
The motion of an ellipsoidal particle in simple shear flow
at low Stoke ' s numbers is described by the equations
derived by Jeffery ( 1 922). These equations give the
orientation of the particle in terms of the angle (/), which
is defined in Fig 7, and f3, which is measured from the z­
axis. The motion of an ellipsoidal particle in a simple
shear flow in terms of the angles t.P and e is given by
N u m erical Res u lts
The beam and fluid flow solvers as well as the fluid­
strucure interaction have been extensively validated by
Mark et al. (20 1 1 a; 20 1 1b) and Svenning (20 1 1 ) . Here
we focus on the flow of fibers and fiber suspensions. The
first part of the results section presents simulations of a
fiber in a shear flow. Even though this case is
geometrically simple, it is highly interesting because
experiments as well as analytical results are available for
comparison. The simulation results obtained in the
present work are compared with Jeffery's equations as
well as with experimental results. The fiber motion is
simulated both with the beam model and the 30 model
described previously. The simulations in this part were
obtained with full two-way coupling, except the
simulations presented under Flow induced deformation,
that were performed with one-way coupling.

( Cl>)
The second part of the results section presents a
<i:> Y_ r 2 sin 2 Cl> + cos 2 simulation of paper forming. Results obtained with one­
��-
= _ _

l
'
J e
way coupling and semi-two-way coupling are compared.

(re: Jt..
+
[3 ]
iJ =
-1 sin(2CI> ) sin(2B), Fi ber in shear flow - comparison with theory and
��- 1 4 experi ments
where re is the (equivalent) aspect ratio and y is the shear
+

A fiber submerged in a shear flow will rotate and, if

rate. Eqs. [3], which are valid for ellipsoidal particles, flexible enough, deform as a result of the fluid forces.
can also be applied to cylindrical particles if an The simulation framework described in the theory section
equivalent aspect ratio is introduced. Harris and Pittman has been used to study the motion of a fiber in a shear
( 1 975) introduced a semi-empirical relation for the flow. A fiber diameter of 0.2 mm was used in all the

J.l4re�844 ,
equivalent aspect ratio given by simulations and the fiber length was varied to get the
��
desired aspect ratio. In the experiment that will be used
=
[4] for comparison, the fibers were made of nylon. Therefore
where ref is the true aspect ratio and re is the equivalent a value of 2.7 GPa was used for Young' s modulus and
aspect ratio that should be inserted into Jeffery's Poisson' s ratio was set to 0.39. The fibers are buoyant in
equations. The orbit period of the motion can be the simulations and the density was set to 1 1 40 kg/m3 •

( J'
calculated as The fluid domain is hexahedral in shape with lower
corner at the origin and upper corner at (80, 42, 1 6) mm.
T = 2� ��2 + I
[5] A Cartesian octree grid with adaptive refinements is used
r re for the discretization of the fluid domain, the background
Eq [5] can be rewritten to include the orbit period T :
grid has a cell size of 2 mm and the grid is refined several

( r2 sin2 <I> + cos 2 <t>)

times around the fiber. Each refinement decreases the cell
<D 2Jr _!_ size by a factor of 2. The velocity is set to zero at the wall
�
=
[6] with normal in the y-direction at y = 0 mm. A the wall
T
'
e
with normal in the y-direction at y = 42 mm, the velocity
in the x-direction is set to y'h, where y is the shear rate
In this way, T can be estimated from a simulation by
fitting the numerical data to Eq [6].
and h is the channel height. Cyclic boundary conditions
1 .5 were employed on the faces with normal in the x- and z­
directions. Fig 2a illustrates the boundary conditions and
the refinements around the fiber. Since the fiber is
buoyant, the fluid density is 1 1 40 kg/m 3 . The fluid
viscosity was set to 6.0 mPas.
0.5 The fiber was discretized with 1 0 beam elements when
the beam model was used, unless stated otherwise. When
the 30 code was used, the fiber was discretized with
3 1 680 linear hexahedral elements. The volume mesh has
1 0 elements over the diameter of the fiber. Newmark's
timestepping scheme was used and St. Venant-Kirchhoff
.5 -
-O�S0'::- - -----'---
-" - - ---:-
, .'::-
5- - -----'---
-" - - ---"1.5
elasticity was assumed in the 30 simulation.
Fig 1 . A fiber (thick red li ne) in a shear flow. The shear flow in
the x-y plane, defined by vx in the figure, is illustrated with the
The x- and y-components of the fluid velocity for a
typical simulation are shown in figure Fig 3. The x­
thin blue arrows. The angle <D is measured from the fi ber center component of the velocity is dominated by the shear flow
line to the x-axis.

1 86 Nordic Pulp and Paper Research Journal Vol2 7 no.2/2012

 PAPER PHYSICS

Wa l l

lie

Wall

(a) Fluid domain with refinements around the fiber.

5 6 7 8

� (a) vx

(b) Fiber aligning with the flow. The numbers refer to the
time in seconds.

Fig 2. Fluid domain and fiber motion .

induced by the walls, while the y-component is

dominated by the disturbance induced by the fiber. Note
that the x-component of the velocity is much larger than
the y-component. The process of a fiber aligning with the
flow is shown in Fig 2b. The effect of the cyclic
boundary condition can also be seen: when the fiber starts
to leave the domain to the right, it reenters from the left.
Orbit period
(b) vy
A fiber in a shear flow rotates in an oscillatory motion.
The orbit period of this motion varies with the aspect Fig 3. Velocity field around a fiber in a shear flow. The x-axis is
ratio of the fiber. To investigate this dependence, fibers i n the horizontal direction and the y-axis is in the vertical
with an aspect ratio of 5, 1 0, 20, 40 and 80 were studied. direction .
The shear rate was set to 0.35 s- 1 and a time step length of
I ms was chosen, resulting in a Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy Table 1 . Fluid grids used in the convergence study. The number
(CFL) number of approximately 0.2. The motion of the of cells is given for the fiber with aspect ratio 1 0.
fiber was simulated for 50 s of physical time, resulting in Grid Num refs Appr. n u m cel ls Min. cel l size [m]
50000 time steps. Two-way coupling was used and the 1 5 23000 62.5•1 0-6
orientation angle <l> was extracted at each time step in the 2 6 43000 3 1 .25•1 0-6
simulations. The orbit period T was estimated from the 3 7 2 1 1 000 1 5 . 625•1 0-6
simulations by fitting the temporal history of <l> to Eq [6}
with a least-squares fit. The simulated time is shorter than Com parison with experi ments
the orbit period of the fibers. Note that this is not a Moses et al. (200 1) studied the motion of a nylon fiber in
problem when a least-squares fit is used to estimate the a shear flow experimentally. Accurate measurements of
orbit period. Fig 4a shows the simulated orbit period as a the fiber orientation as a function of time were reported.
function of the equivalent aspect ratio. The agreement In the present work, one of the experiments described by
with the theoretical values given by Eqs [4] and [5] is Moses et al. (200 1 ) has been simulated. The fiber
very good and the dependence on the aspect ratio is very considered here has a diameter of 0.2 mm and a length of
1
well captured. 1 7.9 mm. The shear rate is 0.35 s- and the fiber is
The spatial convergence of the simulations is shown in initially aligned with the y-axis. Moses et al. used corn
Fig 4b and the grids used are summarized in Table 1 . The syrup with a viscosity of 6 Pas, resulting in an extremely
convergence is good and it can be concluded that grid 2 viscous flow. For numerical reasons, a lower viscosity of
gives a reasonably grid independent solution. 6 mPas was used in the simulations. Even though this

Nordic Pulp and Paper Research Journal Vol27 no.2/2012 1 87

PAPER PHYSICS

Flow induced deformation

1 000
Flexible fibers in a shear flow are deformed into
characteristic shapes by the fluid forces. The shape of the
800
"
,/

/
/
,/
deformed fiber is determined by the fiber flexibility, the
/
fluid properties and the shear rate. In this section, it will
600
/
/
/
be shown that the present fiber model is capable of
�
/
/
/
f-- reproducing these characteristic shapes. To save
400 computational time, these simulations were performed
with one-way coupling.
200 Forgacs and Mason ( 1 959) studied flow induced
deformation of threadlike particles in a shear flow
0 experimentally. It was found that the fibers deformed into
0 10 20 30 40 50
re H different shapes depending on the flexibility of the fibers.
(a) Orbit period vs equivalent aspect ratio. A very rough classification of the deformed fiber shapes
follows:
1 00
- - - G rid 1 • For very stiff fibers, no visible deformation
2 occured.
80
- · - · G rid
- G rid 3
• Slightly more flexible fibers bent like a leaf
spring at <D = 45' and then straightened.
• Even more flexible fibers performed snake turns,
where one end bent and ran along the fiber to
complete the rotation. Highly symmetrical
20
fibers, that were perfectly straight initially,

- -�-� --�--�-
- -�
deformed into an s-shape.
ool_� ---=�=== • Very flexible fibers performed coiled orbits and
10 20 30 40 50 deformed into complex shapes.
time rsl
{b) Spatial convergence
To study these deformation shapes, simulations of
flexible fibers in shear flow have been performed. The
Fig 4. Orbit period and spatial convergence. 1
shear rate was set to 3 . 84 s· and the fluid viscosity was
set to 9 . 1 2 Pas. One-way coupling was assumed and the
1 00 ,----�-----;:====;1 fiber had a length of 2.074 mm and an aspect ratio of 170.
J effery (Ana�tical)
o

0 Moses ( E x p )
- Si m, beam e l
- - - Si m, volume el
20
time rsl
Fig 5. Motion of a fiber in a shear flow: comparison between
theory, experiments, simulation with beam elements and full 30
simulation .
decrease in viscosity is substantial, the flow is still highly
viscous and the fiber will still follow the fluid almost
perfectly. The time step length was set to 1 ms and 50 s
of physical time was simulated. The temporal evolution
of the fiber orientation is shown in figure Fig 5. The
simulation results agree very well with the data presented
by Moses et al. (200 1 ) and no difference can be seen
between the simulation results and the analytical results
given by Jeffery's equation. Note that this good
agreement with the experiment was achieved even though
a lower viscosity was used in the simulations. Fig 5 also
shows the fiber motion predicted with the 3D FEM
model. These results agree very well with the results from
the beam simulation.
The fiber stiffness was varied in order to obtain the
different deformed fiber shapes. The fiber was perfectly
straight initially in all simulations and it was released at
an angle of <D=-85°. 40 beam elements were used for the
spatial discretization of the fiber.
Fig 6 shows the fiber shape for different values of
Young's modulus. The fiber shown in Fig 6a has a
Young's modulus of 63 kPa, resulting in rigid rotation.
This is in contrast with the fiber shown in Fig 6b, which
is more flexible with E = 6.3 kPa and bends slightly
during rotation. When the stiffness is further reduced to
E = 630 Pa, the fiber deforms into an s-shape as shown in
Fig 6c. The fiber shown in Fig 6d is very flexible with
E = 6.3 Pa and deforms into a complex shape during
rotation. Note that the fibers used in the simulation were
perfectly straight initially. Therefore, the deformed
shapes are symmetric. Since the fibers are released in the
x-y-plane and they are perfectly straight, they do not
deform at all in the z-direction. However, the experiments
performed by Forgacs and Mason ( 1 959) showed that
very flexible fibers (corresponding to Fig 6d) perform
helix rotations where deformations occur also in the z­
direction. Such motions are probably induced by a small
imperfection that causes the fiber to buckle out of the x­
y-plane. To study this hypothesis, the fiber shown in Fig
6d was simulated once more, but this time a perturbation
was added by twisting the fiber 3 ° around the y-axis. Fig
la shows the deformed shape of the fiber in the x-y-plane

1 88 Nordic Pulp and Paper Research Journal Vol27 no.2/2012

 PAPER PHYSICS

and Fig 7b shows the same fiber in the x-z-plane. A can

\ I
be seen, the fiber deforms out of the x-y-plane and

\
performs a helix rotation of the type reported by Forgacs
and Mason ( 1 959). This is in contrast with the fiber
shown in Fig 6d, which deformed only in the x-y-plane.
S i m u lation of paper form i n g

(a) Rigid rotation Simulations of paper forming involve complex

phenomena that need to be resolved with sufficient
accuracy. To save computational resources, it is desirable

\ \ I
{b) Small deformation
(c) S-tu rn
{d) Complex deformation
Fig 6. Deformation of elastic fibers in a shear ftow. The fibers
are visualized in the x-y-plane.
(a) Deformation of a fiber in the x-y-plane.
{b) Deformation of a fiber in the x-z-plane.
(c) Deformation of a fiber: 3D view.
Fig 7. Helix rotation of a ftexible fiber. A pertu rbation out of the
x-y-plane is necessary to in itiate this deformation mode.
to make simplifications. This section investigates the
effects of simplifications by simulating paper forming
with one-way coupling and with the semi-two-way
coupling described previously, where the flow around the
fibers close to the forming fabric are resolved.
The forming fabric used in the simulations is PRINTEX
5000 PB574, an SSB fabric (sheet-support binder). This
is a 2/5 shed triple layer fabric with CD (cross direction)
paired binders. The geometry of a piece of the forming
fabric is shown in Fig 8.
The domain is 2 x 2 x 2.8 mm3 and a velocity of I m/s
in the negative z-direction is prescribed at the inlet at z =
2.8 mm. The pressure is set to zero at the outlet at z = 0
mm and symmetry boundary conditions are used on the
remaining faces. The fluid is water, therefore the
viscosity is set to 1 mPas and the density is set to 1 000
kg/m3 . The fibers are buoyant with a density of 1 000
kg/m3 and Young's modulus is set to 0. 1 GPa. The cell
size of the base grid is 0 . 1 mm and the grid is refined
three times around the forming fabric and the fiber web.
In the simulations with semi-two-way coupling, the
steady fluid velocity field is recalculated after each 1 000
fiber time steps. 200 fibers are inj ected randomly in the
domain at the start of the simulation. More fibers are
continuously inj ected at the top of the domain during the
simulation. This is illustrated in Fig 9, where a fiber web
is gradually built up.
During the process of paper forming, most fibers stay
on the forming fabric while some fibers fall through the
forming fabric and are carried away by the fluid. To
study this effect, two simulations were performed with
identical settings, except that one simulation used one­
way coupling and the other simulation used semi-two­
way coupling as described previously. The grammage
built up on the fabric in these two simulations is
compared in Fig 1 0 . Initially there is no difference
between the simulations with one-way and semi-two-way
coupling, but very soon the semi-two-way coupling
simulation starts to predict a higher grammage than the
simulation with one-way coupling. After some time, a
constant difference is established between the two curves
in Fig 1 0 . This is reasonable, since the formed fiber web
blocks the fluid flow through the holes in the forming
fabric and therefore decreases the probability that other
fibers will fall through the forming fabric. After some
time, mechanical contact with the fiber web will prevent
fibers from falling through the forming fabric, which
explains the asymptotically linear curves with constant
difference after longer times. In other words, the forming
fabric has a large influence on the buildup of grammage
initially, but the influence of the forming fabric decreases
Nordic Pulp and Paper Research Journal Vol27 no.2/2012 1 89
PAPER PHYSICS

25

20

Time (s]
Fig 8. Forming fabric used in the simu lations: PRI NTEX 5000
PB574. The fabric surface is shown as opaque (left) and partly Fig 1 0. Grammage of the fiber web pred icted with one-way and
transparent (right) . semi-two-way cou pling.

(a) t=0 (b) t = 5 ms

Fig 1 1 . Fluid velocity through a slice at z = 1 .4 m m . The fiber

web gradually blocks the fluid flow, resulting in higher velocity
through the channels th at are still open .

/\ /, :- l'l;���
, ���e���m� ,
• J

-' /"""""' , ,
,--

, _
;

- - - )
(a) t=0 (b) t = 5 ms (c) t = 1 0 ms

Fig 1 2. Buildup of a virtual fiber web: snapshots at 0, 5 and 1 0

F i g 9. Snapshot from a laydown simulation: a fiber web i s
gradually built up a n d more fibers are contin uously injected at
the in let. The grid is colored by the pressure.
as the fiber web is built up and fiber-fibe.r contacts
become more important than fiber-fabric contacts.
The influence of the fiber web on the flow field is
illustrated in Fig 11, which shows the fluid velocity in a
slice through the fiber web. The slice was taken at z = 1 .4
mm with normal in the z-direction. At t = 0 ms, no fibers
have settled on the forming fabric. The square pattern
visible in Fig 1 1 a is induced by the forming fabric. Fig
1 1 b shows the velocity field after 5 ms, when some fibers
have started to form a fiber web. Some disturbance of the
velocity field can be seen. After 1 0 ms, so many fibers
have fallen down on the fiber web that they start to block
the fluid flow. This results in higher velocities in the
channels that are still open, as can be seen in Fig 1 1 c. Fig
12 shows the fiber webs corresponding to the velocities
in Fig 1 1 . In this simulation, the domain contained 1 672
fibers after 10 ms.
ms.
Conclusions
Using the immersed boundary method to couple a
nonlinear finite element solver with a Navier-Stokes
solver allows the motion of fiber suspensions to be
studied. The motion of a fiber in a shear flow has been
simulated and excellent agreement was found with
Jeffery's equations as well as experiments. Flow induced
deformation was studied by simulating highly elastic
fibers in a shear flow. The shapes of the deformed fibers
were found to be in qualitative agreement with shapes
found in experiments.
Early paper forming was simulated with one-way and
semi-two-way coupling. lt was found that semi-two-way
coupling predicts a higher retention of fibers than one­
way coupling, indicating that the flow through the fiber
web is important to resolve in order to predict the fiber
retention.

1 90 Nordic Pulp and Paper Research Journal Vol27 no.2/2012


Acknowledgements
This work is part of the ISOP (Innovative Simulation of Paper)
project which is performed by a consortiu m consisting of Albany
International, Eka Chemicals, Stora Enso, Tetra Pak,
Fraunhofer ITWM and Frau nhofer-Chalmers Centre.
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