AUTOMOTIVE PAINTING PROCESS SIMULATION

Automotive paint shop is a critical part of car manufacturing, and this is not going to change with new wave of electric and autonomous vehicles. Painting is critical because it gives a feel for quality to customers and is critical for corrosion protection in the long run. There are new manufacturers and new factories with new models, all requiring paint planning. Modern car painting process involves multiple steps where careful preparation to achieve top quality is a must. First step is the e-coating where the body in white is dipped into an electrocoating solution, and a high voltage is applied for film build up. Follow-up is application of primer, base coat and clear coat layers via spray painting. Each of these steps include baking and cooling cycles in between. Uniform e-coat thickness is required for corrosion protection. There should not be any air entrapments or e-coat undrained during e-coating.

The baking process is required for curing of structural and cosmetic seals and proper heating is a must. Unequal or insufficient heating can result in different seal related quality problems. The uniform paint thickness at spray painting is critical as well. Too much or too less can cause orange peel or fish eye problems. All these problems can be predicted and planned in parallel with car design using Ansys tools. Multiphase fluid flow, electrostatics, particle tracking, wall film modeling, conjugate heat transfer and radiation, in other words the physics behind car paint shop can be modeled and tuned for perfection. Recent developments in Ansys tools also enables processing of complex and large automotive CAD geometries. Ozen Engineering has completed numerous consulting projects in regards to paint process modeling and can help companies paint shop planning. Ozen Engineering makes use of cloud computing as an enabler for large and long transient runs.