Effect of chill cooling conditions on cooling

rate, microstructure and casting/chill

interfacial heat transfer coefficient for sand
cast A319 alloy
F. Farhang Mehr*1, C. Reilly1, S. Cockcroft1, D. Maijer1 and R. MacKay2
A combination of experiments and numerical analyses were used to examine the cooling
conditions, solidification microstructure and interfacial heat transfer in A319 cast in a chilled
wedge format. Both solid copper chills and water cooled chills, with and without a delay in water
cooling, were examined in the study. Various chill preheats were also included. The goal of the
investigation is to explore methods of limiting heat transfer during solidification directly beside the
chill and increasing cooling rates during solidification away from the chill. Within the range of
conditions examined in the study, chill preheat was found to have only a small effect on cooling
rates between 5 and 50 mm from the chill/casting interface, pour superheat a moderate effect and
water cooling a significant effect. In comparison to the results for the solid chill, the solidification
time at 5 mm with water cooling applied at the beginning of mould filling is reduced from 56 to
15 s and at 50 mm from 588 to 93?5 s. Furthermore, the average cooling rate during solidification
is increased from 1?9 to 7?06uC s21 at 5 mm and from 0?18 to 1?13uC s21 at 50 mm. At 50 mm, for
example, the increased cooling rate achieved with water translates into a reduction in secondary
dendrite arm spacing from 40 to 25 mm or ,40%. Delaying the water cooling by 10 s facilitated
slow cooling rates at 5 mm (similar to those achieved with a solid chill) and high cooling rates
50 mm from the chill. A temperature based correlation was found to be suitable for characterising
the behaviour of the interfacial heat transfer coefficient in the solid shill castings, whereas a time
based correlation was needed for the water cooled castings.
Keywords: Chill, Water cooled chill, Cooling rate, Microstructure, Casting/chill interfacial heat transfer coefficient, Sand cast A319 alloy, Mathematical
modelling

Introduction to reduce the length scales of the microstructural

In recent years, the automotive industry has been
developing small, high power gas engines in order to
reduce fleet fuel consumption while at the same time
meeting consumer demand for increased performance.
This trend requires an improvement in the thermal and
mechanical fatigue durability of the aluminium alloys
used in the production of the cylinder heads and engine
blocks in these engines.1,2 In the absence of modifying
alloy chemistry, which potentially has significant impli-
cations in downstream operations such as heat treating
and machining, one viable way to improve mechanical
performance, and in particular fatigue performance, is
1
Department of Materials Engineering, The University of British Columbia,
6350 Stores Road, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
2
Nemak Engineering Center, Nemak of Canada Corporation, 4655 G.N.
Booth Drive, Windsor, Ont. N9C 4G5, Canada
*Corresponding author, email far.mehrm65@gmail.com
features arising from solidification. In the precision
sand casting process, which is predominantly used in
industry to produce cylinder heads and engine blocks,
this can be achieved through increasing the cooling rate
with the aid of metallic chills.3–6 According to several
previous studies,4,7–10 cooling rate has a direct effect on
the shape, size and distribution of the microstructural
phases that form during solidification, including the
hydrogen based porosity.
One caveat to the use of chills is that the formation of
a columnar structure (generally stemming from large
temperatures gradients) beside the chill must be avoided
because of the associated reduction in fatigue perfor-
mance. A second one is that missruns or laps in the cast
surface can occur if the liquid metal is excessively cooled
during mould filling. From the standpoint of overall
product quality, therefore, low initial cooling rates are
desired to avoid missruns, laps and/or a columnar
structure, whereas high cooling rates are desired to

ß 2014 W. S. Maney & Son Ltd.

Received 27 November 2013; accepted 24 January 2014
288 DOI 10.1179/1743133614Y.0000000105 International Journal of Cast Metals Research 2014 VOL 27 NO 5

reduce microstructural length scales and enhance fatigue
performance.11 To address these contrasting require-
ments, the chill is often preheated to reduce early heat
extraction. The problem with this approach is that the
preheated chill also has less ability to refine the soli-
dification microstructure away from the casting/chill
interface within thick sections of the casting by virtue of
the fact that the preheat has reduced the capacity of the
chill to absorb heat before saturation (saturation is
defined as the point where the chill reaches approxi-
mately the same temperature as the casting at the
interface between the two). One possible solution is to
use a water cooled chill. It is envisioned that during
mould filling, the chill would be in a preheated state,
void of water, to facilitate a slow initial cooling rate
beside the chill. Then, at the desired time, the water
would be switched on to drastically increase the capacity
of the chill to extract heat deep into the casting, thereby
improving alloy fatigue performance. In essence, the
point of introduction of water cooling would both
increase the driving force for heat transport (tempera-
ture difference between the chill and the casting surface)
and increase the effective thermal mass of the chill (the
capacity to adsorb heat).
In addition to driving force and chill thermal mass,
the behaviour of the interface between the chill and the
casting will also have an influence on the ability of a chill
to extract heat. Generally, during metal casting pro-
cesses, the contact between the metal and mould, which
would also include a chill, varies with time leading to a
change in the thermal resistance of the interface.12–14
Therefore, the resistance to heat flow that develops at
the interface, normally expressed mathematically as 1/h,
where h (W m22 K21) is the heat transfer coefficient,
needs to be considered in castings that utilise chills.15–17
The time dependence arises because the thermal/
mechanical distortion of the cast component and/or
the chill can result in changes in interface contact, e.g.
the interface behaviour is not generally exclusively
dependent on the thermal behaviour of the casting.16,18
This paper presents the results of a quantitative
assessment of the performance of a standard solid chill
in comparison to a water cooled chill (with and without
a delay in cooling). The performance metrics measured
experimentally include the cooling rate variation in the
wedge casting as a function of time and distance from
the chill and the associated microstructure length scale
variation with distance from the chill. In addition, a
quantitative assessment of the variation in the thermal
resistance at the interface between the chill and casting
with time has been conducted using a mathematical
model. Specifically, this research programme is focused
on determining quantitatively the efficacy of a water
cooled chill in transitioning from a low initial heat
transfer rate (chill preheated, no water cooling) to a high
heat transfer rate (water cooling) using a standard wedge
chill mould fabricated in precision sand.
Experimental set-up and procedure
To simulate the broad range of solidification rates
experienced in engine blocks, a standard, wedge shaped
casting, dimensioned drawing shown in Fig. 1, was
utilised in this study. The mould used to produce the
casting was made from bonded sand and was provided
by Nemak Canada Ltd, using the same precision sand
International Journal of Cast Metals Research
Farhang Mehr et al. Effect of chill cooling conditions on sand cast A319 alloy
moulding system employed commercially for the pro-
duction of cylinder heads and engine blocks. The wedge
mould is designed to allow solidification horizontally
from the narrow end of the wedge, where the chill is
located, toward the thicker end, which is attached to a
large riser (also shown in Fig. 1). Dimensioned drawings
of the solid and water cooled chills placed within the
mould package are shown in Fig. 2. Figure 3 shows a
photograph of one-half of the mould with the solidified
casting, riser and metal feeding system in place after the
casting is cooled and the opposite one-half of the mould
has been removed. This image shows the case in which a
water cooled chill was employed. Note that the original
cavity for the chill in the wedge mould package was
larger than the chills used in this study, and hence, a
shim was used to force the chill into contact with the
casting.
A319 was used in the study as it represents the
dominant alloy used for the commercial production of
engine blocks and cylinder heads in North America. The
alloy composition is presented in Table 1. Commercially
pure copper (99?9%) used for the chills.
To collect data suitable for assessing the thermal
behaviour of the castings with the various chill
combinations used in the study, a series of holes were
made in the bonded mould to allow thermocouples to be
placed into the mould cavity at 5, 10, 30 and 50 mm
from the interface with the chill. This series of
thermocouples was located at approximately midheight
in the cavity (refer to Fig. 1 for exact height). Four
additional thermocouples were placed in the mould
cavity 50 mm from the chill at different heights (refer to
Fig. 1). Two were located in the top half of the casting
and two in the bottom half. These were used to assess
the extent to which a vertical temperature gradient
developed in the casting, thereby guiding the develop-
ment of heat transfer model. To examine the thermal
behaviour of the chills, holes were also drilled into the
chills to facilitate placement of a series of thermocouples
2 mm from the interface. These were also placed at
various heights (refer to Fig. 2 for exact locations). All
of the thermocouples used in the study were of type K
and were 3 mm in diameter and sheathed in a nickel–
chrome based alloy (Super OMEGACLAD XL sheath-
ing). The thermocouple data were logged at a frequency
of 2 Hz using Labview software (Labview is a trademark
of National Instruments Corporation).
To fill each mould, 18 kg of A319 alloy was heated in
a silicon carbide crucible until molten by placing the
crucible in a top loading electric furnace model Q3C.
Before pouring and while still in the electric furnace,
argon was injected into the bottom of the melt for
15 min through a stainless steel lance with a porous
graphite head in order to degas the melt. The melt was
poured into the mould in ,15 s. The casting conditions
employed for each experiment are shown in Table 2.
With one exception, casting 1, the pouring temperature
was 740¡5uC for all of the castings. Casting 1 was cast
at 780¡5uC in order to assess the impact of melt
superheat. In the cases where the chills were preheated
(castings 1–3 and 6), they were heated in an electrical
furnace to the designated temperature and placed in the
mould cavity immediately before pouring. The water
flow rate for castings 5 and 6 was set to 50 L min21 and
measured with an inline water flow meter. The
2014 VOL 27 NO 5 289
Farhang Mehr et al. Effect of chill cooling conditions on sand cast A319 alloy

1 Dimensioned drawing of cast wedge and riser (all dimensions are in mm)

2 Dimensioned drawing of a solid chill and b water cooled chill configurations used in study (all dimensions are in mm)

290 International Journal of Cast Metals Research 2014 VOL 27 NO 5

 Farhang Mehr et al. Effect of chill cooling conditions on sand cast A319 alloy

Epiphot 300 optical microscope, equipped with a

QImaging digital camera. The secondary dendrite arm
spacing (SDAS) was estimated in each sample using the
line intercept procedure19 and was taken as a represen-
tative measurement of the microstructure length scale.

Results and discussion

3 Solidified wedge, water cooled chill condition
temperature of the mains water supply was fairly
constant at ,10uC. In the standard water cooled
experiment, the water flow started simultaneously with
the beginning of the metal pouring procedure and in
delayed water cooling; it started 10 s after the comple-
tion of pouring process.
In order to assess the effect of the variation in cooling
rate on microstructure, five 10610610 mm cubic
metallographic specimens were taken at 5, 10, 30, 50
and 150 mm from the chill from the central vertical
plane of castings 1 and 5. Castings 1 and 5 were chosen
as they experienced the lowest and highest cooling rates
respectively. The metallographic samples were polished
down to 0?1 mm and etched using 0?5%HF solution.
Metallographic images were taken with a Nikon
Experimental results
Effect of chill initial temperature
To begin, the effect of chill temperature is examined,
which is the conventional method used by industry to
moderate solidification rates beside a chill. Figures 4
and 5 contain the cooling curves for thermocouples
located at 5 and 50 mm from the chill interface
respectively. Each plot contains the results for castings
2–4 with initial chill temperatures 160, 115 and 20uC
respectively. Additionally, the response for the mid-
height chill thermocouple has been included and is
plotted using a secondary y-axis. The difference between
the temperature at the 5 mm location in the casting and
in the chill provides an approximation to the driving
force for heat transfer across the casting/chill interface
as both materials have a relatively high thermal
conductivity. In each figure the liquidus (610uC) and
solidus (504uC) temperatures for A31920 have been
added for reference, dot dash and dash lines respectively,
and are plotted against the left hand side vertical
(primary) axis. The range of time plotted has been
limited to the time to complete solidification, i.e. time to

4 Comparison of solid chill condition at 5 mm from chill, varying chill temperatures

Table 1 Chemical composition of A319 alloy

Alloying element/Wt.% Si Fe Cu Mn Mg Zn Ti Sr Al

8.10–8.75 0.27–0.59 2.60–2.95 (0.7?Fe)-0.44 0.31–0.4 0.4–0.8 0.12–0.16 0.004 max. Balance

Table 2 Casting conditions

Casting 1 Casting 2 Casting 3 Casting 4 Casting 5 Casting 6

Cooling conditions Solid chill Solid chill Solid chill Solid chill Water cooled, no delay Delayed water cooled

Pouring temperature/uC 780 740 740 740 740 740

Chill temperature/uC 175 160 115 20 20 115

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Farhang Mehr et al. Effect of chill cooling conditions on sand cast A319 alloy
5 Comparison of solid chill condition at 50 mm from chill, varying chill temperatures
transition from the pour temperature to the solidus at
the location plotted. Note, therefore, that the time scales
in the two figures are different.
From these data, it can be observed that, in general,
the cooling curves for the cast-in thermocouples show an
initial rapid drop in temperature at the beginning of
solidification that gradually moderates with increasing
fraction solid. The chill thermocouples in comparison
initially rapidly increase in temperature levelling off in
the range of 300–400uC at ,1000 s. The levelling off in
temperature in the chill may be referred to as a
saturation point and represents the time at which the
chill ceases to accelerate the removal of heat from the
casting as heat transport is shifted to be dominated by
the mould.
From the two figures, the time intervals between the
liquidus and solidus are 80?5 s at the 5 mm location for
casting 2, 53 s for casting 3 and 53 s for casting 4. At the
50 mm location, the corresponding times are 1054, 703
and 673 s respectively. Assuming a linear cooling rate
for the solidification interval, this translates into average
cooling rates of 1?3uC s21 at 5 mm location for casting
2, 2?0uC s21 for casting 3 and 2?0uC s21 for casting 4. At
50 mm, the corresponding rates are 0?1, 0?15 and
0?16uC s21 respectively. The 5 mm data do not show
the expected trend of consistently increasing cooling rate
with decreasing initial chill temperature, whereas the
50 mm data generally do. A couple of comments may be
made based on these data.
First, the lack of strong sensitivity to chill preheat is
not surprising as the solid chill employed in castings 2–4
is relatively small (10?5 kg) compared with the mass of
the casting (16 kg), taken to be the wedge and riser and
ignoring the feeding system. This difference in mass
directly impacts on the capacity of the chill to extract
heat from the casting. Taking a lumped approach as a
first approximation, the change in enthalpy associated
with a uniform change in temperature within the
solidification temperature range may be estimated using
equation (1)

Effect of superheat
DHthermal,cast ~ rA319 CP,A319 DTcast zLA319 Dfs Vcast (1)
where DHthermal,cast (J) represents the change in heat
content or enthalpy in the casting resulting from a
292 International Journal of Cast Metals Research 2014
uniform change in temperature DTcast (K) within the
solidification temperature range. rA319 is the density
(kg m23) of cast material, CP,A319 (J kg21 K21) is the
specific heat capacity, LA319 (J m23) is the volumetric
latent of solidification, Dfs is the increment in fraction
solid associated with the uniform change in temperature
and Vcast (m3) is the volume of cast component. The
equivalent expression for the chill can be generated by
removing the latent heat term, using the appropriate
volume for the chill and substituting the properties for
copper. Assuming that r and CP are temperature
independent in both materials and that the fraction
solid varies linearly with temperature for A319, equa-
tion (1) can be used to roughly estimate the equivalent
response of the chill to a one-degree uniform change in
temperature in the casting during solidification assuming
no heat transport to the mould. The result is that a 1uC
uniform change in casting temperature corresponds to a
19uC change in chill temperature.
Another observation that can be made from Fig. 4 is
that the reduction in cooling rate observed at the 5 mm
location at between ,15 and 20 s in all three castings does
not correspond to saturation in chill temperature and a
loss in driving force for heat transfer (temperature
difference across the chill) as the chill data indicate that
the chill temperatures are continuing to increase in
temperature. Moreover, the similar cooling behaviour in
all three castings at 5 mm occurs despite significantly
different chill temperatures. Both of these observations
would imply a different mechanism limiting heat transfer,
which is examined in the section on ‘Estimation of chill/
casting interfacial heat transfer coefficient’.
Finally, it would also appear that chill preheating is
relatively ineffective in moderating cooling rates beside
the chill until chill preheat temperatures approach 160uC
for the experimental conditions examined in this study.
In contrast, chill preheat appears to be more effective in
manipulating solidification conditions 50 mm from the
interface.
To assess the effect of pour superheat, another process
variable that may be controlled industrially, the results
for castings 1 and 2 have been compared, which have
VOL 27 NO 5

6 Comparison of solid chill condition at 5 mm from chill, varying superheat
approximately the same chill temperature, but different
pouring temperatures (780 and 740uC respectively).
Figures 6 and 7 contain the cooling curves for the
thermocouples located at 5 and 50 mm from the chill
respectively. The behaviour of the chill has been added
to the two figures and is plotted on the secondary y-axis.
Again, in each figure, the liquidus and solidus tempera-
tures for A319 have been added for reference, and the
range of time plotted has been limited to the time to
complete solidification, resulting in different time scales
in the two figures.
As can be seen, the amount of superheat has a
moderate effect on cooling response. The sample cast at
780uC (170uC superheat) has a time interval for
solidification of 294 s at 5 mm and the sample cast at
740uC (130uC superheat) 80?5 s. At 50 mm, the times are
1489?5 and 1054 s respectively. The corresponding
average cooling rates are 0?36 and 1?32uC s21 at 5 mm
and 0?07 and 0?1uC s21 at 50 mm respectively. Figure 7
also shows that the chill saturates in temperature sooner
and at a higher temperature for the cast poured with the
higher amount of superheat. The comparatively large
sensitivity to pour superheat is again related to the mass
difference between the casting and the chill discussed in
the previous section, and thus, changes in the superheat
have a larger impact than changes in chill temperature.
7 Comparison of solid chill condition at 50 mm from chill, varying superheat
International Journal of Cast Metals Research
Farhang Mehr et al. Effect of chill cooling conditions on sand cast A319 alloy
Effect of water cooling
Figures 8 and 9 present a comparison between the
thermocouple results for casting 4 and 5 at the 5 and
50 mm locations respectively. Casting 4 employed a
solid chill, and casting 5 employed the water cooled chill
(no delay). Both castings had approximately the same
casting conditions, i.e. same pouring temperature and
same initial chill temperature. The two figures also
include the thermocouple responses observed in the
chills for the two castings plotted on the secondary y-
axis. Again, in each figure, the liquidus and solidus
temperatures for A319 have been added for reference,
and the range of time plotted has been limited to the
time to complete solidification, resulting in different time
scales in the two figures.
These graphs clearly show the increased heat extrac-
tion capacity achieved by means of water cooling the
chill. In comparison to the results for the solid chill, the
solidification time at 5 mm with water cooling applied at
the beginning of mould filling is reduced from 56 to 15 s
and at 50 mm from 588 to 93?5 s. Furthermore, the
average cooling rate is increased from 1?9 to 7?06uC s21
at 5 mm and from 0?18 to 1?13uC s21 at 50 mm. The
response observed in the chill thermocouples plotted in
Fig. 8 shows only a small initial increase in temperature
in the water cooled chill peaking at ,60uC followed by a
2014 VOL 27 NO 5 293
Farhang Mehr et al. Effect of chill cooling conditions on sand cast A319 alloy
8 Cooling curve comparison with and without water cooling 5 mm from chill
drop to ,25uC. There is no saturation in chill
temperature, and a large temperature differential is
maintained across the casting/chill interface helping to
sustain the high cooling rate deep into the casting. The
increase in cooling achieved with the water is greater
deeper into the casting (63?5 at 5 mm vs. 64 at
50 mm). This is because the water cooling maintains a
larger driving force for heat transfer as the material
deeper into the casting solidifies, whereas in the solid
chill, the chill has saturated by the time this material
solidifies.
Effectiveness of delay in water cooling
To investigate the effectiveness of delaying the water
cooling as a means of reducing the cooling rate in
proximity to the chill, the results from castings 3 and 6
have been compared. Both castings were poured at
740uC and a chill preheat of 115uC. The results for the
thermocouples located at 5 mm from the chill are
presented in Fig. 10 and for the 50 mm thermocouples
in Fig. 11. Both figures also include the thermocouple
responses observed in the chills plotted on the secondary
y-axis. Again, in each figure, the liquidus and solidus
temperatures for A319 have been added for reference,
and the range of time plotted has been limited to the
time to complete solidification, resulting in different time
scales in the two figures.
As can be seen in Fig. 10, the thermocouples located
5 mm from the chill show approximately the same
cooling rate for the two castings up to ,30 s, which
9 Cooling curve comparison with and without water cooling 50 mm from chill
294 International Journal of Cast Metals Research 2014
corresponds to as solid fraction of y0?9 being achieved.
In fact, the solid chill appears to cool the material at the
5 mm location quicker over the 30 s interval, which is
most likely caused by the reduced mass of the water
cooled chill (y33%) associated with the removal of
material to create the water cooling channel. Then, at
,30 s, there is a marked divergence in behaviour
associated with a large increase in the cooling rate in
the water cooled casting. Solidification is complete at
y32 s in the water cooled casting compared with y45 s
in the solid chill casting. Again, note that at the 5 mm
location, the material is y90% solidified at the low
cooling rate easily avoiding the formation of a columnar
structure beside the chill. The results presented in
Fig. 11 show that switching the water on after a 10 s
delay was effective in significantly increasing the cooling
rate and decreasing the solidification time 50 mm into
the casting. In comparison to the solid chill, the
solidification time at 50 mm decreased from 657 to
168 s. Overall, these results show that this method has
the potential to both avoid missruns and a columnar
structure at locations in proximity to the chill while at
the same time improving the cast microstructure from a
fatigue standpoint farther into castings remote from the
chill such as for example in main bearing bulkheads.
Microstructure
In order to investigate and quantify the effect of cooling
rate on SDAS, five metallographic specimens at 5, 10,
30, 50 and 150 mm from the chill were taken from the
VOL 27 NO 5
 Farhang Mehr et al. Effect of chill cooling conditions on sand cast A319 alloy

10 Cooling curve comparison between delayed water cooling and solid chill at distance of 5 mm from chill

11 Cooling curve comparison between delayed water cooling and solid chill at distance of 50 mm from chill

central vertical plane of castings 1 and 5. Castings 1 and
5 were chosen for assessment as they represent the two
extremes in cooling rate examined in this study.
Figure 12 shows a plot of the variation in SDAS size
with distance from the chill for the two castings. As can
be seen, the microstructure of the solidified casting (as
defined by the SDAS) becomes progressively coarser
with increasing distance from the chill in both castings
reflecting the decreasing cooling rate as would be
expected. In addition, the results clearly show that the
SDAS sizes at all of the positions examined for the water
cooled chill (no delay) condition are significantly smaller
than for the solid chill case. At 50 mm, for example, the
reduction in SDAS is from 40 to 25 mm or ,40%. The

12 Variation of SDAS with distance from chill: error bars show range of data given by 40 measurements taken from each
sample; marker shows average value

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Farhang Mehr et al. Effect of chill cooling conditions on sand cast A319 alloy
13 Microstructure of a casting 1 and b casting 5 at distance of 50 mm from chill
optical microscope images of the two casting taken at
50 mm are presented in Fig. 13 and further support this
fact qualitatively.
Estimation of chill/casting interfacial heat
transfer coefficient
Model development and fit to measured data
As previously described, in addition to maintaining a
large temperature difference across the chill/casting
interface to drive heat transfer, good thermal contact
must also be maintained at the interface for the chill to
be most effective. Normally expressed in terms of the
interfacial heat transfer coefficient, it is therefore
important to quantify and compare the behaviour of
the interface heat transfer coefficient for the solid chill
and water cooled chill under some of the conditions
examined in the study. This information will help to
identify any potential issues related to interfacial heat
transport associated with the application of water
cooled chills industrially.
There are a variety of methods appearing in the
literature for estimating the interface heat transfer coeffi-
cient in casting processes.6,13,14,17,18,21,22 In the current
work, the method employed is to develop a mathematical
based heat transfer model of the casting and chill including
the interface, which is then used to estimate the heat
transfer coefficient by aligning the model predictions to the
thermocouple measurements. A trial and error methodol-
ogy is used whereby changes are made to the temperature
and or time dependence of the interfacial heat transfer
coefficient until good alignment is achieved between the
model predictions and measurements.
In the early stages of casting solidification, at
locations in proximity to the chill, transport of heat
takes place mainly through the chill/casting interface.
This is due to the fact that the sand mould has a low
thermal conductivity and acts as an insulating material,
whereas in comparison, the copper is a strong heat
conductor. Thus, as an approximation, the sand mould
geometry is not included in the analysis domain and is
instead approximated using a heat transfer coefficient in
combination with a time dependent sink temperature.
The details of this approach are presented in Ref. 23. In
Table 3 Initial conditions of castings
Casting 1 Casting 2 Casting 3
Cooling conditions Solid chill Solid chill Solid chill
Melt initial temperature/uC 720 680 680
Chill initial temperature/uC 175 160 115
296 International Journal of Cast Metals Research 2014 VOL 27
addition, the analysis of the thermocouples located
50 mm from the chill at various heights revealed that
only a small vertical gradient in temperature develops in
the casting. Thus, it has been assumed to a first
approximation that the calculation domain can be
further limited to a two-dimensional (2D) slice of the
casting at midheight and fluid flow and mould filling can
be ignored and only diffusive heat transport need be
considered. As a final step in reducing the computational
size of the problem, the thermal field was assumed to be
symmetric about a vertical plane bisecting the casting
and hence only one-half of the geometry was modelled.
According to the experimental results, the melt tem-
perature drops ,60uC during the pouring process. Since
the modelling does not include pouring process, the
initial temperature of the melt was set to 60uC less than
the pouring temperature. The initial conditions applied
to each casting are presented in Table 3.
The mathematical model has been developed in the
commercial finite volume program ANSYS CFX
version 12.1. The details of the application including
governing equations, development of the various
boundary conditions and materials properties (including
method of incorporation of the latent heat of solidifica-
tion) are presented in Ref. 23. The model domain,
including identification of the various boundary condi-
tions, is shown in Fig. 14a for the solid chill casting and
in Fig. 14b for the water cooled chill. As ANSYS CFX
does not allow the analysis of 2D domains, a ‘2D slice’
was taken to be a planar horizontal section through the
casting 2 mm in thickness. All of the surfaces normal to
the plane of the analysis domain are assumed to be
adiabatic as is the symmetry plane. A series of specified
heat transfer coefficients are used to describe the casting/
sand mould boundary, casting/chill interface and chill/
sand mould boundary (see Ref. 23).
Comparisons between the model predictions and
measurements for the solid chill model (casting 4) and
for a water cooled casting (casting 6) are shown Figs. 15
and 16 respectively. As can be seen, the model is able to
reproduce the thermal behaviour obtained from the
thermocouples within the casting and chill to a reason-
ably accuracy to within ,2% or 10uC for most of the
Casting 4 Casting 5 Casting 6
Solid chill Water cooled, no delay Delayed water cooled
680 680 680
20 20 115
NO 5
 Farhang Mehr et al. Effect of chill cooling conditions on sand cast A319 alloy

14 Model domains and boundaries conditions applied to a solid chill and b water cooled chill conditions

15 Comparison between the experimental data and model predictions for casting 4 (solid chill, chill initial temperature,
20uC; pour temperature, 740uC)

16 Comparison between experimental data and model predictions for casting 6 (10 s delayed water cooled chill, chill
initial temperature, 115uC; pour temperature, 740uC)

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Farhang Mehr et al. Effect of chill cooling conditions on sand cast A319 alloy
17 Temperature dependent melt/chill interfacial heat transfer coefficient for solid chill conditions
locations examined. Thus, the estimates obtained for
behaviour of the interface heat transfer coefficients may
also be expected to be reasonably accurate.
Solid chill interfacial heat transfer coefficient
Figure 17 compares the temperature dependent inter-
facial heat transfer coefficients needed to fit the model to
the thermocouple data for the four solid chill experi-
ments. The temperature on the x-axis of the plot
represents the surface temperature of the casting at the
interface, which is predicted by the model. Vertical lines
have been added representing the liquidus temperature
and solidus temperature. Qualitatively, all the curves
show the same behaviour. The heat transfer coefficient
starts at a high value in the range of 1700 to
2300 W m22 K21 and remains constant until the
liquidus temperature is reached (stage 1). A small drop
is observed between liquidus and solidus in the range of
10–15% (stage 2), and finally, they all drop between 65
and 75% to a value of 500 W m22 K21, at an interface
temperature in the range of 475–480uC (stage 3), which
represents the end of the computational analysis. In
addition, there is a strong dependence of the IHTC on
the amount of melt superheat showing a trend to higher
initial values with elevated pouring temperatures.
These results are consistent with other studies in
which the behaviour of the casting/mould interface has
been examined.14,17,21,22 In stage 1, good physical
contact between the casting and the chill is achieved as
the molten metal fills at least a portion of the asperities
present on the chill surface due to its high fluidity.
Complete contact with the chill cannot be obtained due
to the melt surface tension effects. Higher superheats
and higher chill initial temperatures result in better
conformability with asperities and higher heat transfer,
which is consistent with the data shown in Fig. 17. In
stage 2, the liquid to solid transformation starts at the
interface and contact between the casting, and the chill
begins to degrade as the solidification structure at the
18 Time dependent melt/chill interfacial heat transfer coefficient for water cooled conditions
298 International Journal of Cast Metals Research 2014
interface develops and localised microscale shrinkage
occurs. In stage 3, solidification proceeds into the casting
resulting macroscale shrinkage and formation of a gap.
Water cooled chill/casting interfacial heat transfer
coefficient
The thermal behaviour of the chills in the water cooled
castings consistently showed an initial increase in
temperature followed by a drop within the first y60 s
of the casting process. This required the application of a
time dependent interfacial heat transfer coefficient to fit
the model predictions to the thermocouple data, unlike
in the case of the solid chill based castings, which could
be adequately described with a temperature based
coefficient. Figure 18 shows the time dependent inter-
facial heat transfer coefficient applied to the two water
cooled chill models. The data for both castings show the
same initial high value for the interfacial heat transfer
coefficient in the range of 1800–2000 W m22 K21. They
then show a drop in heat transfer to between 1400 and
1500 W m22 K21 in a relatively short period of time
(y25 s), which is followed by a plateau ranging in time
from ,10 to 30 s in which the interfacial heat transfer
coefficient does not drop, followed by a continues drop
to ,900 W m22 K21 at 300 s, which represents the end
of the period of the computational analysis.
To examine this behaviour more closely, the data
from casting 5 has been replotted at two different time
scales 0–50 and 0–350 s. In addition, the temperature
behaviour of the casting, at the interface, and chill, at
the interface, has been added using the secondary y-axis.
The liquidus and solidus lines have also been added. As
can be seen, the behaviour in stages 1 and 2, as labelled
on the plots, is identical to the interface behaviour
observed for the solid chill. Stage 3 in contrast behaves
differently showing two regimes of behaviour, defined as
stages 39 and 30, in Fig. 19. In stage 39, the interfacial
heat transfer coefficient is observed to be invariant in
time, and in stage 30, it is observed to decrease with time
VOL 27 NO 5

19 Temperature variation of interface at casting domain and time dependent IHTC, casting 5 (water cooled chill, chill
initial temperature, 20uC; pour temperature, 740uC)
in a similar fashion to that observed in stage 3 for the
solid chills. The period of invariant behaviour appears
to coincide with a slowing in the increase in the chill
interface temperature as it approaches its peak value.
Stage 30 begins with the drop in chill temperature.
In the standard water cooled casting, casting 5, stage
39 is longer than in the delayed water cooled casting. The
mechanism for this difference is unclear. The delay in
water cooling results in the chill, reaching a much higher
temperature before beginning to cool. It also results in a
reduction in the cooling rate of the casting in the early
stages of the casting. Both factors should contribute to a
longer delay in gap formation, e.g. expansion of the chill
and reduced contraction in the casting, respectively,
which is contrary to what is observed. Further work is
planned to directly measure the behaviour of the gap
and to move to a coupled thermal stress model for
analysis of the results.
Conclusions
The work shows that application of water cooled chill
technology in combination with the appropriate delay
interval for switching the water cooling on has the
potential to improved mechanical fatigue performance
in large section thicknesses in A319 via a substantial
reduction in SDAS. The delay was found to be effective
in moderating the cooling rate beside the chill, which has
the potential to avoid some of the problems associated
with the application of large cold chills in industry
including cold shuts and the tendency to form a
columnar grain structure directly beside the chill.
The main conclusions from this work are summarised
as follows.
1. Chill preheat was found to have only a relatively
small effect on the cooling achieved within the A319
wedge casting over the range of conditions examined in
the study. The preheat conditions of 20 and 120uC
showed virtually identical behaviour, whereas a preheat
of 160uC yielded a small reduction in cooling rate at the
50 mm location and virtually none at the 5 mm location.
International Journal of Cast Metals Research
Farhang Mehr et al. Effect of chill cooling conditions on sand cast A319 alloy
2. Cast superheat was found to have a moderate effect
on cooling rate for the conditions examined in the study
at both the 5 and 50 mm locations.
3. Water cooling was found to significantly reduce the
cooling rate at both the 5 and 50 mm locations.
4. Switching the water on with a 10 s delay was shown
to be effective in transitioning from an initial low
cooling rate similar to that achieved with a preheated
solid chill 5 mm from the interface to a high cooling rate
50 mm from the interface.
5. A comparison between the variation in SDAS in
the castings produced with the solid chill and water
cooled chill (no delay) showed a substantial reduction in
SDAS at distances ranging from 5 to 150 mm, which
was the maximum depth examined.
6. Characterisation of the variation in interfacial heat
transfer under the casting conditions examined in the
study with a 2D transient heat conduction model
revealed differences in behaviour between the castings
produced with the solid chills and those produced with
the water cooled chills. The evolution of temperature
with time in all of the solid chill castings could be
accurately described using a temperature dependent
function for the interfacial heat transfer coefficient. In
contrast, the water cooled castings required a time
dependent function. Further work is required to under-
stand the variation in the interfacial heat transfer
coefficient particularly as it is effected by the develop-
ment of a macroscale gap at the interface.
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