Solidification Analysis

The solidification phenomena of metal can be characterized as a phase change phenomena generated by a temperature change.  For the solidification of aluminum alloy, iron alloy, magnesium alloy, which are usually used in Die Cast parts, latent heat is discharged at a certain temperature area, based upon the growth of the dendrite. It is extremely difficult to consider the micro-phenomena when performing a solidification analysis.  In this product we considered both aspects of the solid phase boundary and the liquid phase boundary and handle the subject as a 3 area matter.  Namely, we perform a solidification analysis by averaging and expressing the effects of the dendrite growth as change rates of a solid phase. We have adopted the Enthalpy to handle the phase change phenomenon.  Enthalpy looks at the phase change phenomenon as heat capacity and it is able to handle in unity the Enthalpy as a parameter in terms of the analysis system.

SOLIDIFICATION SIMULATION APPLICATION EXAMPLE

After applying the solidification simulation program to the actual Die Cast part, estimations on the locations of casting defects that may occur during solidification are indicated below in Figure 1.  Analysis of the cellular phone part is the same as in the fluid flow simulation application example, and is also produced by aluminum Die Cast.  Divided 547 ways in the X direction, 251 ways in the Y direction, 78 ways in the Z direction with one edge of 0.255mm.  All together it made a 10,709,166 element mesh.  It required about 2 minutes to divide on a pre-processor.   Indicated below is the hardware environment used in the analysis.

SOLIDIFICATION ANALYSIS

Hardware: COMPAQ DS20E(MPU:667MHz RAM:4GB )   A solidification analysis was conducted concerning the above mentioned analysis terms.  The material properties used in the solidification analysis are indicated in Table 1, and the required time and memory used for the analysis are indicated in Table2.

Table 1 Material Property

Table 2 Analysis Time and Memory Usage