Predicting Rubber Extrudate Shape with OpenFOAM

VMI Group BV; Zwolle; On-site; EUR 6,696 - 11,160; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Internship allowance

Travel allowance

Opportunity to participate in a Master Class

Job summary

VMI Group BV is offering an internship in the Netherlands, specifically in Zwolle, focusing on CFD for tire manufacturing. Interns will work with OpenFOAM to develop a workflow for simulating rubber extrusion, tackling real industrial challenges.

Applicants should be Master's students or final-year Bachelor's students in Mechanical Engineering or related fields. An interest in CFD and numerical methods is expected, with opportunities to work both in the office and remotely.

The position offers an internship allowance, travel allowance, and a chance to participate in a Master Class.

Qualifications

• Master's or final-year Bachelor's student in Mechanical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Applied Physics, or a related field.
• Interest in CFD/modelling, numerical methods, and data analysis.
• Available to work 3 days a week from the office and up to 2 days remotely.

Responsibilities

• Develop an algorithm/workflow in OpenFOAM for transient multiphase simulations.
• Produce a written report presenting the approach and results.
• Deliver a sandbox/package containing the cases, codes/scripts, algorithms, and post-processing setup.

Skills

CFD/modelling

numerical methods

data analysis

programming experience

Education

Master’s student or final-year Bachelor student in Mechanical Engineering

Tools

OpenFOAM

Python

Matlab

Job description

Want to turn cutting-edge CFD into a practical design tool for tire manufacturing? In this internship you’ll use OpenFOAM to build and validate a simulation workflow that predicts the shape of rubber as it exits an extrusion die—exploring everything from meshing and rheology to post-processing and visualization. The project can be tailored to your goals and curriculum, whether you’re looking for a hands‑on collaborative internship, a research-focused internship, or a graduation thesis project.

Department

The R&D department Rubber Process & Tire Technology (RPTT) serves as a research and technology group (6 employees) to support other departments within VMI in topics related to rubber processing and tire technology. In that role RPTT researches current and potential promising topics relate to processing rubber compound. It additionally supports product groups to make the right design decisions to shape rubber in the right way in their machines.

What are you going to do?

In this project you’ll tackle a real industrial CFD challenge: predicting the shape of a rubber strip after it exits an extrusion die using OpenFOAM. You’ll build the simulation workflow end‑to‑end—starting with creating and comparing meshes (e.g., with snappyHexMesh, Salome or Ansys Mesher), then diving into the governing equations and how OpenFOAM solves them (Finite Volume Method, solvers and numerical schemes).

Next, you’ll set up realistic rubber behavior using appropriate high-viscosity generalized Newtonian material models, define initial and boundary conditions, and run transient multiphase simulations for flow inside and out of the die. As you iterate, you’ll perform parameter studies (mesh, time step, solver settings, rheology parameters) to improve stability and realism, and you’ll use ParaView plus Python/Matlab to turn the results into clear visualizations, plots and/or videos. Throughout the project you’ll document your steps and settings into a repeatable, standardized “recipe” so the workflow can be reused as a future design tool—optionally extending the work to the extra challenge of asymmetric dies.

Goals

• Develop an algorithm/workflow in OpenFOAM to perform transient multiphase simulations of rubber flow out of asymmetric dies (challenge/extension).
• Produce a written report that presents the approach and results in a clear, structured way.
• Deliver a sandbox/package containing the cases, codes/scripts, algorithms, and post‑processing setup used for the simulations and analysis.

Who are you?

• Master’s student or final‑year Bachelor student in Mechanical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Applied Physics, or a similar field.
• Interested in CFD/modelling, numerical methods, and data analysis (programming experience is a plus).
• Available to work 3 days per week from the office and up to 2 days remotely (from home).
• Able to communicate clearly and document your work in a structured way.
• Internship duration can be adapted to 6 months up to 12 months.
• Preference for students who can stay longer than 6 months.

What do we offer?

You will have the opportunity to carry out challenging research in which you can add real value to the organization. For this internship you will receive an internship allowance that you can expect from a leading company and a travel allowance.

In addition to our own internship program, you will have the opportunity to participate in a Master Class at Perron038.

What will your internship bring VMI?

For VMI, this internship delivers a practical and reusable CFD “recipe” to simulate rubber extrusion more reliably. The outcome is a standardized OpenFOAM workflow (including recommended settings, case templates, and post‑processing scripts) that enables engineers to predict the rubber strip shape after the die more consistently—covering symmetric dies and, if extended, asymmetric designs. This reduces trial‑and‑error in the design process, shortens iteration cycles, lowers dependency on commercial software, and creates a flexible foundation for future, more advanced simulations and automation.