Numerical Simulation Of Mould Filling And Solidification Of EPC Casting For Aluminum Alloys Cylinder Block

EPC casting is a forming method with high production efficiency, high precision, high production and less pollution. In this paper, the aluminum alloys cylinder block is regarded as the research object. The software ProCAST is employed to simulate the mould filling and solidification of EPC casting for cylinder block. Through the study of numerical simulation, it can guide to get a more reasonable EPC casting process, with the purpose of shorting the test cycle, saving production costs, improving the product quality, and guiding the actual production.As the most important and biggest casting of engine, cylinder block is the most important and difficult part for the engine producing. Cylinder block is a complex structure and different height and thickness casting. It's difficult to product. Based on the structure of casting, two kinds of gating system are designed in this paper: Top gating system and Step gating system. Through the simulation of the filling and solidification of two kings of gating system, and comparing with the velocity field, temperature field and the forming of shrinkage porosity in the two kinds of gating system, it can be found that the top gating system is more peaceful in the mould filling, the temperature field of solidification is uniformity, cooling speed is faster than the step gating system. The top gating system tends to reduce the thermal stress, refine the grain, and gets the uniform distributed organizational structure. So the top gating system is more reasonable.By the orthogonal test design, how the pouring temperature, pattern density and vacuum degree effect the shrinkage porosity forming is studied. It's showed that the vacuum degree is the least significant influence factor, pouring temperature takes the second place, and pattern density is the most significant influence factor. The project that the pouring temperature is 730℃, pattern density is 18g/L, vacuum degree is 30kPa is the best combination that the shrinkage porosity forming tendency is the smallest.So the final EPC casting process can be identified in this paper. For the EPC casting of the aluminum alloys cylinder block(ZL101), it's better to use the EPS as the pattern material, and select the top gating system, the pouring temperature of 730℃, pattern density of 18g/L, vacuum degree of 30kPa.This process can be used to product better quality aluminum alloys cylinder block casting.