FINITE-ELEMENT SOLUTION OF THE 3D MOLD FILLING PROBLEM FOR VISCOUS INCOMPRESSIBLE FLUID

A general solution for the 3D mold filling by incompressible viscous f luid is described. It is based on the combination of an extended flow solver and the solution of a transport equation governing the flow fro nt position. The flow solver uses tetrahedral elements, a first order stable mixed velocity pressure formulation entering in the family of t he MINI-element, and a global iterative solution. The characteristic f unction of the fluid domain is shown to follow a conservative law and the moving fluid description is transformed into a transport equation in the whole domain to be filled. An explicit discontinuous Taylor-Gal erkin scheme is introduced to solve this fluid motion equation. This s cheme is shown to be consistent and conservative. The calculated shape of the fountain flow front is compared to the reference one. The flex ibility and the robustness of this approach is demonstrated through co mplicated flows and geometries examples. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A . All rights reserved.