Evaluating Dishwasher Cleaning Efficiency Using SPH and GPU-Accelerated Simulation

Categories:

The cleaning performance of a chemical dishwasher was analyzed using an SPH simulation to capture complex droplet dynamics and surface interactions. With GPU acceleration, high-resolution multiphase flow simulations were performed efficiently. By tracking liquid coverage time on contaminated surfaces, the study enabled accurate evaluation of dilution and cleaning effectiveness, supporting optimized operating parameters.

Details:

Technologies Used:

Ansys Discovery
Rocky
SPH

Objective:

Evaluate the cleaning efficiency of a chemical dishwasher by analyzing dilution and liquid coverage of contamination on complex surfaces.

Challenge:

Direct measurement inside a dishwasher is difficult due to the harsh environment and limited accessibility for sensors. During operation, droplets of varying sizes form and interact with complex internal geometries.
Traditional CFD approaches such as VOF (Volume of Fluid) require dense meshes and long computation times to accurately capture free-surface breakup and droplet dynamics, making them computationally expensive for this application.

Solution:

An SPH (Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics) method was applied to simulate the multiphase flow. As a mesh-free approach, SPH handles free-surface fragmentation and complex solid–fluid interactions efficiently. Using Rocky DEM’s built-in monitoring capabilities, the contact time between liquid and solid surfaces was tracked to evaluate cleaning effectiveness. Leveraging GPU acceleration, simulations were performed with high resolution and significantly reduced computation time.

Conclusion:

The developed simulation approach enabled detailed assessment of liquid coverage and dilution on all relevant surfaces. Based on the results, the company was able to optimize operating parameters of the dishwasher, ensuring a safe and sufficient level of dilution across the entire system while improving process efficiency.

Figure 1: Photorealism Pictures of the Project.

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