| The basic purpose of the present study was to evaluate the capabilities and ease of use of a commercial casting software package, ProCAST, and in particular to evaluate its abilities to predict the high pressure die casting (HPDC) of light alloys and the thixocasting of aluminum alloys. A second purpose of the study was to use ProCAST to evaluate the effects of relatively small changes in the casting input parameters, such as material viscosity, on the properties of the casting and, in particular, on the formation of faults, such as shrinkage porosity, during the filling and solidification procedure. The ProCAST software, which is based on the use of the finite element method, can be applied to the analysis of fully coupled thermal, fluid, stress, microstructure and porosity prediction problems. In applying the software, complex geometries including the casting, molds, gates, overflow and cooling lines can be treated as a complete system or these separate components of the system can be considered in isolation from each other. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
