COMPUTATIONAL MODELS FOR THE SIMULATION OF THE FORMING PROCESS OF CARTON PACKAGES

This paper synthetically describes new numerical tools developed for the simulation of the mechanical process of forming carton packages for beverages. Two topics are here considered: the simulation of the folding process of the paperboard along pre-formed crease lines and the simulation of the interaction between the container and the filling liquid. For the first topic, an interface finite element and constitutive model is proposed to simulate the presence of crease lines in a paperboard. The proposed model, formulated in terms of axial forces and bending moments, accounts for progressive plasticity and damage in the creased material, showing a good correspondence with the results of bending tests for varying initial crease characteristics. For the second topic, a fully Lagrangian finite element method for fluid-structure interaction problems is proposed. The method is inspired to the so called particle finite element method, first introduced by Idelsohn and O\~{n}ate and is based on a continuous Delaunay re-triangulation of the mesh. The method is providing good results for 2D problems, while extension to 3D problems and to the interaction with shell structures is currently in progress.