An Investigation into the Effective Heat Transfer Coefficient in the Casting of Aluminum in a Green-Sand Mold

Abstract

This study commences by performing an experimental investigation to measure the temperature distribution within a casting system comprising a cylindrical aluminum casting and a green-sand mold. The experimental temperature measurements are then used to compute the effective heat transfer coefficient at the mold/metal interface using four different formulae. In the temperature measurement, a symmetric arrangement of thermocouples is proposed and proven to be feasible, which can reduce the influence of heat-transfer and solidification characteristics in a casting experiment due to the close-spaced thermocouples. As an important role in the calculation of the effective heat transfer coefficient, the metal temperature at the mold/metal interface is calculated using an extrapolation technique and an inverse scheme. A lump capacity method is also utilized to estimate the average values of the effective heat transfer coefficients, which are consistent with those of the previous effective heat transfer coefficients. The numerical results obtained for the temperature curves in the green-sand mold are found to agree well with the experimental profiles. Finally, with the effective heat transfer coefficients obtained above, a finite element simulation is performed using FIDAP software to model the evolution of the temperature distribution within the casting during the solidification process. The predicted solidification time is found to be in reasonable agreement with that observed in the experimental casting process.