Thermal optimisation in the sand casting process

The general procedure of thermal optimisation in the sand casting process is addressed. Various aspects of design including the size and position of feeders aid chills ait discussed and practical approaches ave presented to search for optimum design configurations An algorithm is also presented for finding the optimum size, position and number of chills in a sand casting process. The presence of the chill(s) in the casting configurations is simulated using a one-dimensional heat conduction model and proper inter-facial heat transfer coefficients. The method is efficient as ail computations are carried out on the same grid and there is ilo need for ve-meshing due to re-sizing or re-positioning of the chills. A finite element thermal( analysis module is linked to a commercial optimisation tool to search for the optimum set of design variables and a computationally efficient sensitivity analysis method is introduced. Three sand casting test cases are solved to validate and demonstrate the optimisation procedure and these show its use to determine the optimum size, location and number of feeders and chills on a section through a casting.