Mold Filling Experiments of Cast Alloys Using Video Monitoring
 
Arno Louvo, Kari Saarinen and Kimmo Rautama
CT-Castech Inc. Oy
Presented at Modeling of Casting, Welding and Advanced Solidification Processes VIII
June 7-12, 1998, San Diego, California, USA
 
Introduction

Mould filling experiments were carried out in 13 Finnish foundries to acquire reference material for mold filling simulation development of casting simulation program CastCAE.

 Subjects examined:

  • effect of pouring temperature and pouring rate
  • effect of different runner and ingate sizes
  • effect of filters
  • effect of pouring height
A glass was attached to the mold using clamps.

Silicon paste was used to achieve a sound interface.

ROBAX S panels were used to replace the other side of the mold.

A regular 8mm videocamera with a tripod was used at all experiments.

The experiments from the videotape were converted to QuickTime movie files using Apple Video Player.

Case

Test system with varying pouring height (Asko Components UPO Foundry)

  • Grey cast iron/ silica sand (Alphaset)
  • No coating used on the mould
  • Pouring temperature(1380 +/- 5) °C
  • Pouring time 4+/- 0.5 seconds
  • Cases were duplicated to ensure reliability
  • In all three cases the glass broke after the metal had filled the cavity

The aim of the experiments, which was to obtain reference material for the verification of simulation results, was achieved very well.
Bottom ingates, poured from top of the sprue. Top: Videoed experiment. Bottom: simulated results.
Bottom ingates, poured 300 mm above the sprue. Top: Videoed experiment. Bottom: simulated results.
Side ingates, poured from top of the sprue. Top: Videoed experiment. Bottom: simulated results.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank FIMET (The Federation of Finnish Metal, Engineering and Electrotechnical Industries) and its member foudries for the co-operation as well as TEKES (the Technology Development Centre of Finland) for the financial support.
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