Determination of the heat transfer coefficient at the metal–sand mold interface of lost foam casting process

Abstract

For modeling solidification process of casting accurately, a reliable heat transfer boundary condition data is required. In this paper, an inverse conduction model was established to determine the heat flux and heat transfer coefficient at the metal–sand mold interface for cylindrical casting in the lost foam process. The numerically calculated temperature was compared with analytic solution and simulation solution obtained by commercial software ProCAST to investigate the accuracy of heat conduction model. The instantaneous cast and sand mold temperatures were measured experimentally and these values were used to determine the interfacial heat transfer coefficient (IHTC). The IHTC values during lost foam casting were shown to vary from 20 to 800 W m−2 K−1. Additionally, the characteristics of the time-varying IHTC have also been discussed in this study.