Modeling and Simulation of Solidification in Alloy Steel Sand Castings

Author : P. Prabhakara Rao, G. Chakraverthi, A.C.S. Kumar, G. Srinivasa Rao

Abstract

Casting is a liquid metal filling the cavity, and in which the solidification and cooling process, which includes a lot of impact on the quality of casting complex phenomenon. During this metallurgical process, it induces casting defects like shrinkage, porosity and hot tears [1]. 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 industries to optimize the design parameters, better understand the mould filling and temperature history of the solidifying castings hence to identify the defects 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 the mould filling simulation process is presented. This paper reviews the details of ProCAST, a FEM based computer code simulation of solidification of castings in foundries. Since, computers became widely available in industry; researchers have been working on the development of programs to simulate the solidification of castings.

Keywords: Numerical simulation, Steel castings, Mould filling, Solidification of sand casting