Design Information Revealed by CAE Simulation for Casting Product Development

Abstract

In casting product development, the design and development paradigm is shifting from traditional trial-and-error in workshop to simulation-based virtual realization in up-front design process. The traditional trial-and-error approach appears to be more heuristic know-how than deep scientific analysis and calculation. The knowledge and know-how acquired through trial-and-error is difficult to be applied in similar product development as a little change of product geometry would lead to significant changes of casting design, tooling design, melt flow pattern, and process route and parameter configuration. CAE simulation technology, which models the entire casting system and imitates the dynamic behaviors of the system in working conditions, provides complete design information for generating, verifying, validating and optimizing design solutions for process and die design via simulation of the entire casting process. In addition, the design information provided helps reveal and predict the final product output in terms of product microstructure, defects, quality and properties in such a way that the optimal design solution can be determined. In this paper, the modeling of casting processes is first articulated and the associativity between the casting process, modeling, simulation and output variables are presented. A simulation-based paradigm for revealing the information in different categories is described and how the information helps design solution evaluation and verification is articulated. Through case study, the information in high pressure die casting filling process is presented and the phenomena in filling process is further explained.