Simulation of High Pressure Die Casting (HPDC)

via
STAR-Cast
STAR Global Conf. 2012, 19-21 March, Noordwijk
Romuald Laqua, Access e.V., Aachen

High Pressure Die Casting: Machines and Products

Common Materials:
Aluminum alloys
Magnesium alloys

Zinc alloys
Copper alloys

HPDC process cycle, horizontal cold chamber machine

Parts considered for simulation

HPDC process cycle: 1. closing moving die parts

HPDC process cycle: 2. shot sleeve filled with melt, starting plunger movement

HPDC process cycle: 3. completed shot

HPDC process cycle: 4. ejecting and removing solidified casting

HPDC process cycle: 5. spraying of lubricant, casting cycle finished

Challenges in HPDC Simulation:

Moving plunger in filling chamber moving mesh model necessary

Thin walled, complicated and large castings challenging enmeshment and high cell count
Multi physics: melt, solid, gas VoF model with HRIC scheme, combined with surface
tension model and correct wetting angle
Short pouring times, leading to high fluid velocities small time steps (~0.1ms) mandatory
Extreme pressure ranges from 10 Pa initial cavity pressure up to 1000 bar in melt during
solidification Compressibility model for melt and gas

Why simulate?

Goals & Objectives of HPDC Simulation:

Reduce iterations in tooling development: Cost for one mould insert 50-100k
Reduce process development time: faster achievement of a stable process window
Better process understanding: helpful when negotiate with customers about necessary part design
changes
Typical defects in high pressure die casting:
Misruns: Melt solidifies before filling is completed
Cold shuts: Imperfect fusing of molten metal coming together from opposite directions in a mold
Porosity: small holes caused by insufficient feeding or dissolved gas
Air and oxides inclusions
Cold flakes: floating crystals, solidified at shot sleeve walls and transported into cast part

High Pressure Die Casting Overview

Features
Filling Simulation
Gas is Compressible
Liquid is Compressible
Moving Mesh

Phase Change
Conjugate Heat Transfer
Simulation
Shot chamber is half filled with liquid,
plunger follows shot control curve, pushing
the fluid into the cavity

High Pressure Die Casting: shot curve vPlunger=f(t)

Constant velocity until

mold is filled, followed
by pressure control, up
to 1000 bar

High Pressure Die Casting Geometry and Mesh

Cast

Chilled vents
(allow air to escape and
force melt to freeze)

Die parts

Shot sleeve

Meshing

Polyhedral mesh in cast part and die

Structured (extruded) mesh

in shot sleeve

Cell count: 1.6 million cells in fluid domains

3.6 million cells overall

Meshing

Two layers of prism cells on each side of casting-die

interfaces to resolve high temperature gradients
Water and oil channels are not meshed

Process parameter setup, additional settings related to HPDC process

Shot sleeve components must be identified:

Prefilled
withwalls
melt
Empty
filling
chamber
Shot
sleeve

Process parameter setup

Shot curve definition:

Enter values or
read from file

Process parameter setup

Pressure curve definition:

Enter values or
read from file

Die cycle warm up simulation

Pure thermal simulation over

at least 5 casting cycles,
including all phases: shot,
solidification, die opening,
ejection and spraying
Final temperature
distribution in die is used as
initial state for main
simulation run with coupled
filling and solidification

Initial temperatures in die and shot sleeve

Cooling cycles in oil and

water channels are
modelled by applying mean
fluid temperatures on
channel wall boundaries
(channels are not part of
computational domain)

High Pressure Die Casting Results

Pressure on
melt surface

Time = 1.96 seconds

Velocity on
melt surface

Time = 2.05 seconds

Time = 2.06 seconds

Temperature distribution on melt surface during mold filling

Front view

Rear view

Air entrappments in casting after completed shot (2.52 s)

Initial melt temperature = 640C

Initial melt temperature = 680C

Animated mold filling process with piston movement

Initial melt temperature = 680C

Tliquidus = 613C
Tsolidus = 555C

Future steps of development of STAR-Cast

HPDC process is challenging to simulate seriously, but casting industry

seeks for a more detailed simulation tool with more physics inside
Migration to STAR-CCM+ will simplify the setup process, enhance
postprocessing capabilities and (probably) improve numerical stability