Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228453205
CITATIONS
DOWNLOADS
VIEWS
27
1,499
549
4 AUTHORS, INCLUDING:
Shamsuddin Sulaiman
A.M.S Hamouda
Qatar University
SEE PROFILE
SEE PROFILE
Abstract
Casting solidification is actually the transformation of liquid phase to solid phase with the liberation of latent heat of fusion. During this
metallurgical process, it induces casting defects like shrinkage, porosity and hot tears. To eradicate and eliminate these problems, accurate casting
design and proper design of gating system is necessary. This can be predicted and designed by means of computer simulation of casting solidification.
This review paper discusses about the simulation process of casting solidification with the aid of an example, which will help the foundry engineers
and industrial metallurgists to optimize the design parameters, better understand the temperature history of the solidifying casting and hence to
identify the hot spot region with the aid of obtained time-temperature contours. These results will be used to get defect free as cast products on
implementing the above findings attained from the simulation process. In this paper, the importance of heat transfer in the simulation process
is presented. This paper reviews the details of computer simulation of solidification of castings in metallurgical engineering foundries. Since,
computers became widely available in industry, researchers have been working on the development of programs to simulate the solidification of
castings.
2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Casting solidification; Computer simulation software; Hot tears; Hot spots; Solidliquid interface
1. Introduction
Metallurgical phase transformation plays a vital role in the
solidification of castings [1]. Computer simulation of casting
solidification of metals and alloys is a complex phenomenon
[2,3]. The assumptions and constraints used for simulation are
considered as a vital one [8,23]. In the casting process, the
metalmold interface will have an air gap which affects the dissipation of heat flow from the casting to the mold [7,8]. But the
application of pressure during the solidification process reduces
the air gap and forms a tight contact between the casting and the
mold [4,5]. This condition releases the heat at a faster rate and
produces fine grain structured castings [9]. To identify the conditions and optimum values, simulation of solidification process
is done by running indigenously developed computer software
for the casting process selected for investigation [6,11]. The
program output provides the details on time-temperature profile
0924-0136/$ see front matter 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2005.09.025
and heat transfer coefficient values which plays a key role in the
effective design of castings [10,11].
2. Aim of computer modeling of solidication of
castings:
Many computer simulation programs now exist, but some
require computers of a power not generally available to practical
foundry men, while others take an unacceptably long time to
obtain meaningful results. The aim of computer modeling is to
[56]:
Predict the pattern of solidification, indicating where shrinkage cavities and associated defects may arise.
Simulate solidification with the casting in various positions,
so that the optimum position may be selected.
Calculate the volumes and weights of all the different materials in the solid model.
Provide a choice of quality levels, allowing, for example, the
highlighting or ignoring of micro-porosity.
30
T.R. Vijayaram et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 178 (2006) 2933
T.R. Vijayaram et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 178 (2006) 2933
31
Metallic mold.
Thermocouple leads.
A suitable induction melting furnace to melt the metal or alloy
ingot.
A suitable computer system with sufficient memory capacity.
A graphic plotter.
The real experimental procedure of the solidification simulation system is explained in a simplified manner with the aid of an
example. The selected metallic mold with the casting cavity is
placed on the floor and sufficient number of hole provisions are
made on it to insert the thermocouple lead wires on the selected
locations of the inside casting surface and at the interior locations apart by opted distances. The extended thermocouple wires
from the mold are connected to the input terminals of the data
acquisition system and the corresponding output leads are linked
to an amplifier to amplify the signals [45,46]. A suitable material
is melted temperature. The final output of the amplified signal
is fed to the computer which is supported by the solidification
simulation software package [33]. The used computer software
helps to generate the time-temperature data readings and it is
shown in Table 1. By using suitable graphic package, the data is
Table 1
Generated time-temperature data
Time
Temperature
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
360
390
420
450
480
510
540
570
600
630
660
690
720
750
780
810
840
870
900
930
960
990
1020
1400
1380
310
1260
1200
1100
1150
1040
980
900
840
660
660
660
660
660
660
660
660
660
660
600
520
480
420
380
340
300
260
230
200
170
140
100
70
32
T.R. Vijayaram et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 178 (2006) 2933
T.R. Vijayaram et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 178 (2006) 2933
[22] E.N. Pan, C.S. Lim, C.R. Loper, Effects of solidification parameters on
the feeding efficiency of A 356 Aluminium alloy, Trans. Am. Foundry
mens Soc. (98) (1990) 735746.
[23] K. Kubo, R.D. Pehlke, Mathematical modeling of porosity formation in
solidification, Metall. Trans. B 16B (1985) 359366.
[24] G. Comini, S. Del Guidice, R.W. Lewis, O.C. Zienkiewicz, Finite element solution of non-linear heat conduction problems with special reference to phase change, Int. J. Numer. Methods Eng. 8 (1974) 613624.
[25] T.W. Clyne, The use of heat flow modeling to explore solidification
phenomena, Metall. Trans. B 13B (1982) 471478.
[26] M.J. Beffel, J.O. Wilkes, R.D. Pehlke, Finite element simulation of casting processes, Trans. Am. Foundry mens Soc. 94 (1986) 757764.
[27] K. Morgan, R.W. Lewis, O.C. Zienkiewicz, An improved algorithm for
heat conduction problems with phase change, Int. J. Numer. Methods
Eng. 12 (1987) 11911195.
[28] R.W. Lewis, P.M. Roberts, Finite element simulation of solidification
problems, Appl. Sci. Res. 44 (1987) 6192.
[29] J.T. Berry, R.D. Pehlke, Modeling Solidification Heat Transfer Metals
Hand Book, Casting, vol. 15, 9th ed., ASM International, Metals Park,
Ohio, U.S.A., 1988, pp. 858866.
[30] R.W. Ruddle, The solidification of castings, Inst. Met. (1957) 377.
[31] H.S. Carslaw, J.C. Jaeger, Conduction of Heat in Solids, 2nd ed., Clarendon Press, London, 1959.
[32] S. Bourne, J.A. Spittle, Solidification Processing, Institute of Metals,
London, 1987, pp. 291293.
[33] J.A. Spittle, S.G.R. Brown, Computer simulation of the effects of alloy
variables on the grain structure of castings, Acta Metall. 37 (7) (1989)
18031810.
[34] D.M. Stefanescu, G. Upadhya, D. Bandyopadhyay, Heat transfersolidification kinetics modeling of solidification of castings, Metall.
Trans. 21A (1990) 997.
[35] C.S. Kanetkar, D.M. Stefanescu, Macro-micro modeling of solidification of hypoeutectic and eutectic AluminiumSilicon alloys, Trans. Am.
Foundry mens Soc. 96 (1988) 591598.
[36] M. Rappaz, Modeling of microstructure formation in solidification processes, Int. Mater. Rev. 34 (3) (1989) 93123.
[37] W.D. Rolph, K.J. Bathe, An efficient algorithm for analysis of non-linear
heat transfer with phase change, Int. J. Numer. Methods Eng. 18 (1982)
119134.
[38] J. Roose, O. Storrer, Modelization of phase changes by fictitious heat
flow, Int. J. Numer. Methods Eng. 20 (1984) 217225.
[39] I.G. Chan, D.D. Stefanescu, Computer-aided differential thermal analysis
of spheroidal and compacted graphite cast iron, Trans. Am. Foundry
mens Soc. 92 (1984) 947964.
33