Feedability Analysis and Optimisation Driven by Casting Simulation

Casting simulation programs can be used by foundry engineers for quality assurance and yield optimisation without shop-floor trials, as well as by product engineers for analysing and optimising the feedability of a casting during design phase itself. For widespread application, the simulation programs should require little domain experience, and they should be fast, reliable, easy-to-use, and economical. These goals can be achieved by automating some of the tasks involved: identifying the location of a feeder, calculating its minimum size, creating its solid model, attaching the feeder model to the casting, carrying out solidification simulation, predicting quality and estimating the yield. This paper describes the underlying algorithms, and their implementation in a software program. Two industrial cases of large steel castings show how simulation facilitates troubleshooting and elimination of defects by minor changes to part design coupled with improved methoding of casting.