Investigating the suitability of using a single heat transfer coefficient in metal casting simulation: An inverse approach

Abstract. In metal casting simulation the Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) is unknown as it depends on melt and mold materials, on the casting modulus at different regions of the casting and on local conditions at the mold-casting gap. In this paper, thermocouple measurements at three regions of a brass investment casting provided reference cooling curves. A genetic algorithm (GA) determined the optimum 3-step time-dependent HTC for the whole of the casting in a simulation program for which cooling curves are as close as possible to the reference curves. The resulting prediction of solidification times is satisfactory but prediction of qualitative characteristics such as start / end of solidification in different regions was not accurate enough.