Modeling of an aerospace sand casting process

by Ziolkowski, Joseph Edmund.

Theoretical issues relating to the aerospace sand casting simulation are laid out, identifying parameters used in the model. A sensitivity analysis is performed to examine the mold-metal heat transfer coefficient, mold thermal conductivity, wall friction factor, pouring basin pour temperature, and pouring basin head pressure through doing coupled flow simulations on thin-walled castings using the commercial casting simulation software, MAGMASOFT®. A verification exercise is done to match simulation with reality with the knowledge that mold-metal heat transfer coefficient and mold thermal conductivity are the most influential parameters of the five. Validation on a real production casting is performed using the tuned parameters from the verification exercise. ii