MY4130 Lesson 3

Saturday, September 3, 2016 11:14 AM

(Notes adapted from those produced by J. Kampe)

Based on Sections 4.1, 5.1-5.7 of K. Rundman's Text

Previously on CSI: Houghton (Yeah!!!!!!)sorry for the very dated reference

We heated our metal up using a method of our choosing. (gas combustion, induction, cupola, etc.)

We were able to calculate and examine how much energy it takes to achieve a desired superheat using
heat capacities (Homework 1 has a problem on this)

We then "poured" the pure metal into a mold and the mold to extracted energy (in the form of heat)
from the metal. After the temperature dropped below the melting point, this caused solidification,
which is driven by the minimization of Gibbs free energy associated with the possible phases that can
form (solids have lower Gibbs energy under the melting point, while liquids have lower Gibbs free
energy above the melting point).

We also made note of the fact that during the early stages of solidification, we create a high energy free
surface that can only be formed slightly below the melting point (undercooling). Upon further
solidification, release of latent heat causes the melt temperature to drift back towards the melting point
(recalescence) at which the melt stays until ALL the liquid has transformed to solid.

As pointed out in the text, solidification is the "defining moment" in the life of a cast material. The
manner in which a metal solidifies determines its microstructure, properties and thus how it performs in
service. Additionally, there are several defects that we may see in castings (e.g. shrink porosity), which
are controlled by solidification profiles throughout the casting and gating systems. We will continue our
discussion on solidification today, with a focus on heat transfer in insulating molds.

As we run our foundry, we will probably want to know when we can "shake out" castings from the
molds without encountering molten metal, or cooling our castings so fast that we damage the macro or
microstructure.

To examine how solidification time is calculated we set up a "control volume." Essentially this means
that we zoom in to a small element that captures both the metal we have cast, the interface between
the metal and the mold, and the mold material itself. Let us first consider the case in which we are
solidifying the metal via conduction in sand (an insulating mold).

First we should consider the thermal conductivity of our materials to estimate a "shape" to the thermal
profile across the relevant materials. Let us assume that we have "instantaneously" cast our metal. In
this case, the initial temperature of the bulk metal is our pouring temp. We then allow a sufficient
amount of time to pass so that solidification is "just" about to occur at the interface (i.e. the
temperature at the mold-metal interface is Tm). This gives the profile below.

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In the liquid metal, the conductivity (K) is significantly higher than that of the sand. The "limits" as we
travel "infinitely" far in either direction from the solid-liquid interface will be the pouring temperature in
the liquid and the initial sand temperature in the mold. This gives us two conditions that may be
helpful as we try to derive the relationships to describe how heat is being lost from our cast metal.

As we approach the solid-liquid interface the temperature profile curves so that we have a continuous
distribution of temperatures in the vicinity of the mold-metal interface. Again, due to the high
conductivity in the metal the temperature drops more sharply on this side of the interface than in the
less conductive sand.

Unless we are using some sort of black magic, spontaneous heat flow is generally driven by negative
temperature gradients. As we zoom into the sand portion we can get a more intuitive feel for how heat
is flowing and the consequences of the heat flow.

Screen clipping taken: 9/3/2016 11:57 AM

At X1 the thermal gradient (dT/dx) is greater than at X2. As we allow time increments (dt) to pass, this
leads to a net increase in heat and increase in temperature in this region (control volume), which causes

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leads to a net increase in heat and increase in temperature in this region (control volume), which causes
the spatial temperature gradient to "flatten" over time. The important take away is that the
temperature in our mold material is a function of both time and distance from the interface (T=f(x,t)).

Heat transfer can be a complicated thingespecially in intricate 3D geometries. MAGMAsoft will do this
for us thankfully, but to understand what the program does, and the important factors to consider as we
model castings, we need to look at the relevant mathematical formalisms.

The Heat Equation (an extension of Fourier's Law for conduction) can be used to begin our romp
towards an estimate of solidification time.

Don't be afraid, we are only going to be utilizing this for a one dimensional case (x direction) and also
make the simplifying assumption that there is no heat generation in the mold. (Can anyone think of a
casting process where this may not be the case?)

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We now have a first order partial derivative on one side of the equation (requiring one boundary
condition for time). If you recall we were able to "set up" our system to our advantage and we have
T(x,0)=To in our sand mold.

On the other side of the equation we have a second order derivative requiring two boundary conditions
for the positional variation. If you recall, at our time "t" we have T(0,t)=Tm and T(infinity,t)=To.

So we have the correct number of boundary conditions to handle the solution (would be much more
complicated in 3DThank you MAGMA).

Without getting into too many gritty details, the solution to Fick's 2nd Law applied to heat conduction is
well known under the conditions that we have chosen for our system.

So we have a solution involving the error function (named because of its use in probability and
statistics). It just so happens that the sigmoidal shape of the error function is a good fit for an evolving
thermal profile in the mold.

Let's "play" with the error function by doing a change in variable combining our space and time
dependency

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Plotting the function over all

So now that we have the solution to T(x,t) we can apply Fourier's Law (Fick's First Law) to get the heat
flux at any time or location. Since we are looking for a solidification time and we are capable of
calculating the total energy in the molten metal we can use all of this to get an estimate of the
solidification time at the mold-liquid interface (i.e. at x=0)

In order to take the derivative of the error function with respect to position (x) we can do a Taylor

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In order to take the derivative of the error function with respect to position (x) we can do a Taylor
expansion.

With u equal to:

We can take the derivative of the error function with respect to position:

The total energy that must be removed from the whole casting is simply the sum of energy used to
superheat the metal and the heat of fusion.

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Need to pay very close attention to which term is applying to which component. The thermal diffusivity
and conductivity come from the mold because the mold is responsible for conducting heat "out" of the
metal. Again, we make the assumption that the conductivity of the metal is very high in comparison so
that even after solidification, the heat transfer in the mold is the rate limiting step. The density, volume,
and heat capacity terms all come from the metal since it is the properties of the metal that determine
how much heat must be removed.

Again, this derivation applies to insulating molds only. If we change the mold material (e.g. change to
high conductivity permanent mold) our assumed profile doesn't work anymore. We will discuss heat
transfer in permanent molds in lesson 5.

Next time we will take a look at how the derivation above can be separated into useful relations that can
be used to estimate solidification times in more general cases.

Please read section 6.1 of the K. Rundman text for next time.

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