A FINITE-ELEMENT MODEL FOR COMPLEX PROFILE CALIBRATION

A new finite element model named Corrected Slice Method (CSM) has been developed to cope with three-dimensional vacuum cooling calibrator pr oblems. Such problems appear whenever the cooling channel lay-out comp rises transverse channels in the calibrator. The CSM is an extension o f the 2D approach (8), which takes into account the axial heat fluxes within the calibrator. The proposed model was validated by comparing t he numerical results obtained on a test problem with a rigorous finite element approach. Moreover, a real complex profile-calibrator system was simulated in order to illustrate the full performance of the propo sed method.