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. The AERO MET uses traditional casting route to produce the filter housing, which only gives 5% —10% yield. In this paper, numerical si mulation method is used to analyse fill ing and sol idifi cation of th e casting running system. The CRIMSON running s ystem of the filter housing is designed by using casting simulation software, MAGMAS and Flow3D. By working with AEROMET, various configurations of the casting running systems were tested and analy sed. Using the m ultiple life cycle approach, the energy content of new process is compared with traditional one. It indicates that the CRIMSON process only uses 36% of en ergy consumed by the traditional route.