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Philosophie eines umfassenden gießereitechnischen Systems zur Anschnitt- und Speiserberechnung

Roy Kastelein, SIRRIS, Gent-Zwijnaarde/ Belgien

Reading time: min

SIRRIS is the collective research institute for the Belgium industry. Her Foundry Centre is located in Gent-Zwijnaarde and exists of a pilot sand foundry, an extensive laboratory and a software development group. The foundry engineers in this group have been developing since 1992 the Experto ViewCast casting simulation software, which is widely used in a lot of Benelux jobbing foundries.

The secret of the success of this casting simulation program will be revealed in the presentation. It is based on the combination of numerical simulation routines and so-called Expert modules, which guides the user swiftly towards the optimized design of a feeding and gating system for any new (gravity) casting.

Instead of trial-and-error based series of mould filling and solidification simulations a special philosophy has been developed to work interactively towards the minimum riser-dimensions and a turbulence free gating system without cold-shut. The Expert module 'RISER' proposes the minimum riser dimensiona before the numerical simulation. The Expert module 'GATING' contains an experimentally determined cold-shut prediction criterion and calculates the maximum pouring time allowed before the numerical mould filling simulation.

In the Sirris research laboratory many pouring experiments were recorded behind heat resistant glass to investigate the mould filling pattern. From these experiments the optimal gating design for a bottom pouring system was programmed into the software. From a few simple parameters - like pouring temperaturs, mould height etc. - a complete turbulent free gating system is automatically designed. A special Surface Fitted Structured Mesh (SFSM) type was developed to calculate the exact mould filling pattern in a fraction of the usual calculation time by Finito Volume Methods (FVM) methods.

This results in a very powerful software system for jobbing foundries which is easy-to-use and where the numerical calculation routines are only used to check for geometry dependent problems like insufficient feeding distance in the casting or excess heat loss during mould filling. Within a week a new feeding and gating design can be created from scratch for any new casting you might have.

Große Gießereitechnische Tagung 2008 Aachen

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