English | Deutsch
The speed, with which the development from concept to series production will be realised, significantly defines the success of a product at the market. This general principle is also valid nowadays regarding casting products.

The high degrees of freedom in the geometrical construction lead on the one hand to function-optimised components, on the other hand it is a significant challenge to produce such kind of casting products. The demand - to reach relevant reduction in the development time – is in close connection to that. This demand cannot be attained anymore with using the classical method of "Trial and error". The use of modern simulation methods, which are continuously being developed at high level, can definitely contribute to an effective problem solution.

APPLICATION FIELDS OF SOLIDIFICATION SIMULATIONS

  • identification and elimination of errors, which is caused by the thermodynamic characteristics of the solidification process
    • Esolidification pipe/porosity
    • Cold flow/cold crack
    • Gas porosity
  • Geometrical optimisation of the components
  • Optimal application of isothermal/exothermal feed
  • Optimal application of cooling devices (however the application is frequently geometrically limited and beside this it involves the risk of crack development)
  • Dissolution or creation of defined heat channels in the component, including a turbulence-free form filling via optimisation of the casting system
  • Determination of an optimal casting temperature (as low as possible) when the temperature gradient in the part is as small as possible furthermore with the goal of avoiding shrink holes and porosities. However at the lower temperature limit “cold flow” must be considered.
  • Application of metallographic pressures during and/or at the end of the form filling in order to eliminate the porosity or decrease porosity

POSSIBLE EVALUATION OF RESULTS OF THE SOLIDIFICATION SIMULATION

  • Filling
  • Solidification
  • Remained melting
  • Fraction solid
  • Macro- and microporosity
  • Residual stresses and distortions

Programmsystem: PROCAST, LSDyna, ANSYS
Hardware: AMD Opteron (4 processors, 16 GB hard disc)