Efficient numerical simulation of spray painting processes in automotive manufacturing

We present an efficient numerical method to simulate the spray painting process in the automotive industry. A framework has been developed based on coupled solvers for the air flow, electromagnetic fields and paint droplets. The applied discretization method allows treating moving boundaries in an efficient way and significantly reduces preprocessing time. Thus the simulation of the painting of a car fender or a truck cab takes only a few hours on a standard computer and gives very good agreement with thickness measurements. These results demonstrate the validity of the method and its applicability to increase product quality and reduce production costs in automotive paint shops. It allows performing systematic analysis of the influence of process conditions on the paint thickness and overspray.