Thermal optimisation in the sand casting process

The general procedure of thermal optimisation in the sand casting process i s addressed. Various aspects of design including the size and position of f eeders aid chills ait discussed and practical approaches ave presented to s earch for optimum design configurations An algorithm is also presented for finding the optimum size, position and number of chills in a sand casting p rocess. The presence of the chill(s) in the casting configurations is simul ated using a one-dimensional heat conduction model and proper inter-facial heat transfer coefficients. The method is efficient as ail computations are carried out on the same grid and there is ilo need for ve-meshing due to r e-sizing or re-positioning of the chills. A finite element thermal( analysi s module is linked to a commercial optimisation tool to search for the opti mum set of design variables and a computationally efficient sensitivity ana lysis method is introduced. Three sand casting test cases are solved to val idate and demonstrate the optimisation procedure and these show its use to determine the optimum size, location and number of feeders and chills on a section through a casting.