MY4130 Lesson 5 (with Worked Examples)

Sunday, September 11, 2016 6:29 PM

Adapted from Notes by J. Kampe:

Based on Section 7.1-7.4 of the Rundman Text

Previously on A Game of Molds:

When we considered heat transfer in insulating molds, we assumed the temperature profile across the
interface had a certain shape based on how quickly heat could be transferred through the mold
material.

Today, we will do the same thing, but this time, we will examine what happens when we cast into a
permanent mold. Permanent molds are typically highly conductive compared to sand. They can be
made out of copper, steel, graphite, etc. Because of the high conductivity of permanent molds, we must
revise our assumptions when establishing boundary conditions:

1. Heat transfer in both the molten metal and the metal mold is fast.
2. "To", the initial temperature of the mold, is higher than room temperature, but still much lower
the the melting point of the molten metal poured.
3. Solidification is once again controlled by the heat transfer rate (J) across the casting/mold
interface
4. The rate limiting step in heat transfer is no longer transport of energy through the mold, but
rather how easily it is transported across the mold metal interface.

One handy way to think of the difference between insulating and permanent molds:

Imagine you are trying to exit MacInnes in a large crowdbut the hallway just outside the ice arena has
somehow been filled completely with Jello. The rate limiting step wouldn't be how quickly people can
fit through the doorinstead it is how quickly they can move through the jello. This is insulating mold
heat transfer, the heat energy has a tough time getting home because it is bogged down in transit.

In the case of permanent molds, the heat can move freely on either side of the doors from the arena, so
the rate at which people can exit is determined by how quickly they can open the doors and fit through
the doorway. Heat in permanent molds has not issues moving around away from the interface, it just
needs to get through the door.

Jello analogies aside, under the new assumptions the following profile develops:

Class Notes Page 1

In the metal: The temperature far from the interface is assumed to be the pouring temperature, Tp. At
the mold-metal interface, we again assumed we are "just" about to solidify so the temperature at the
interface is Tm.

In the mold: The temperature profile near the interface falls sharply and stays at a temperature To (no
longer equal to room temperature). Far from the interface, again, the temperature is To.

In order to begin dealing with this problem we define a heat transfer coefficient: h. Essentially what we
just did was elect a "fudge factor" that will help us characterize a system's behavior. As such, we have to
be careful how we use it.

The change in internal energy of the molten metal (Q) per unit time is related to the heat transfer
coefficient by:

This equation is what defines the heat transfer coefficient, h.

Breaking apart the equation we can identify 3 components:

1. dQ/dt is a simply energy transfer term (units of J/s)

2. h*A is the inverse of the resistance for heat transfer in the system (units of J/(s*C).
3. T is the driving force for heat transfer (in this case Tm-To).

What does this mean? Because we defined h to characterize a rather difficult to measure feature (i.e.
heat transfer directly at a surface), h is not defined unless we also stipulate A and T, making h a system
property (it does not vary with time). A, the interfacial area also cannot not vary with time. We also
assumed heat transfer is very fast, so T also does not vary with time.

So we can now quantify the total heat (and flux of heat) running through our interface:

= =

Class Notes Page 2

 = =

Once again, we must remove the heat of fusion (QF)and any additional heat we've put into the system in
generating a superheat (QSH):

+ =

Alternatively we can derive the above relationship be examining heat flux:

= =

+ = =

Substituting the values for QSH and QF and solving we get:

+
=

Or

Again, we are able to separate the mold, cast metal, processing Bs factor from the geometric factor of
modulus, M again:

The inverse relationship between solidification time and heat transfer coefficient is analogous to the
relationship between solidification time and mold diffusivity/conductivity in insulating molds.

Now let's use it!

Reminder: Mention Matt's MAGMA File

Solidification of Aluminum in a Permanent Mold

Example: Calculate the solidification time for a pure aluminum charge (Tp=704 C) that has been cast into
a permanent steel mold (To-149 C) (4x4x4 cm). h-1.31 (J/cm2*s*C).

+
=

Class Notes Page 3

Based on the results of our example, and previous discussions it should be very apparent that the
derivations we walked through are only useful for very rough guesses. We've assumed 1D heat transfer,
solidification does not happen instantaneously in the whole casting (as we've implicitly assumed). It
makes more sense to consider a series of elementsfinite elements one might call them. We can use
this approach (and MAGMA does) to more realistically calculate heat flow and determine the
solidification time in each element.

We will now walk through an example of FEA by hand (hopefully you will appreciate MAGMA a little
more after this)

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