Numerical simulation of the aluminum alloys solidification in complex geometries

The process of mould design in the foundry industry has been based on the intuition and experience of foundry engineers and designers. To bring the industry to a more scientific basis the design process should be integrated with scientific analysis such as heat transfer. The production by foundry techniques is influenced by the geometry configuration, which affects the solidification conditions and subsequent cooling. Numerical simulation and/or experiments make possible the selection of adequate materials, reducing cycle times and minimizing production costs. The main propose of this work is to study the heat transfer phenomena in the mould considering the phase change of the cast-part. Due to complex geometry of the mould, a block unstructured grid and a generalized curvilinear formulation engaged with the finite volume method is described and applied. Two types of boundary conditions, diffusive and Newtonian, are used and compared. The developed numerical code is tested in real case and the main results are compared with experimental data. The results showed that the solidification time is about 6 seconds for diffusive boundary conditions and 14.8 seconds for Newtonian boundary conditions. The use of the block unstructured grid in combination with a generalized curvilinear formulation works well with the finite volume method and allows the development of more efficient algorithms with better capacity to describe the part contours through a lesser number of elements.