In real life, the process of adding binder to the material is affected by gravity and the viscosity of the binder, leading to inhomogeneous distributions. This effect can be modeled by defining a distribution of the binder under the Binder Distribution tab.

The binder either can be distributed homogeneously throughout the domain or follow a distribution in X-, Y- or Z- direction.

Homogeneous

The default distribution is Homogeneous, but it can be changed to a Density Distribution in Z-Direction to allow the modeling of inhomogeneity.

Density Distribution

To model a Density Distribution, no inlet or outlet should be left in the structure. If the structure has an inlet or outlet in the chosen direction, remove it by cropping with Model - ProcessGeo - Crop, Embed & Add Layers - Crop. This is necessary because the algorithm strives to reach the desired binder amount for each sub-segment and will try to add binder in the empty domain. Alternatively, the amount of binder might be set to zero for these segments.

Select the direction for the desired density distribution.

In the examples we consider a density distribution in Z-direction. Then, the Number of Rows defines the number of Z-segments. To change the number of segments, change the Number of Rows to the number of segments desired.

In each section the binder is generated separately according to the rules defined in the General Options tab. The Added Solid Volume Percentage / (%) is scaled with the normalized Relative Density given in the table of Binder Distribution.

The Binder Distribution can be entered in form of a ratio in the Relative Density table.

In the images below, three different segments are clearly discernible with a binder distribution according to the relative values given in the table.

Clicking the Normalize button ensures the Relative Density values sum up to one.

With the buttons Load… and Save… the distribution can be loaded/saved as text file which can be opened with other software as e.g. Microsoft Excel.