Designing Novel CRIMSON running system through numerical simulation method for the purpose of reducing the energy content of aluminium investment casting

摘要

The traditional investment casting foundries us e batch melting and chun ky running systems to produce casting components. This method leaves the energy saving issue as subsidiary one. In our research proje ct, one of the partners, the AEROMET international PLC prov ides the thin wall aluminium component "filter housing " for test. T he AERO MET uses traditional casting route to produce the filter housing, which only gives 5% -10% yield. In th is paper, numerical si mutation method is used to analyse fill ing and sol idification of th e castin g running system. The CRIMSON running system of the filter housing is designed by using casting simulation software, MAGMA5 and Flow3D. By working with AEROMET, various configurations of the casting running systems were tested and analysed. Using the m ultiple life cycle approach, the energy content of new process is compared with traditional one. It indicates that the CRIMSON pro cess only uses 36% of energy consumed by the traditional route.