Optimization of Manufacturing Process to Improve Casting Yield

Numerical simulation and animation is widely used and accepted in manufacturing to reduce hardware prototyping and to improve the parts design and manufacturing processes. Using casting simulation and animation systems it is possible to define the temperature fields in the mould and the cast parts quantitatively. Through the temperature field analyses, the thermal induced stresses and plastic displacements occurring in the material during the cooling process can be analyzed. The manufacturing tolerance can be controlled in the development phase and time necessary for product design can be optimized.

ProCAST software is used in the present work to organize around a manager, which calls the four different modules. MeshCAST, PreCAST, DataCAST and ViewCAST. First casting geometry, in the form of CAD model is loaded into MeshCAST, to generate a FEM mesh. Then the calculation is configured in PreCAST, the pre-processor, PreCAST is linked to Thermodynamic Databases for the automatic determination of the material properties form thermodynamic databases. Before the solver ProCAST is launched, a data conditioner named DataCAST is run. Finally, the results are viewed and presented in this paper.