Accepted Manuscript

Title: Determination of Interfacial Heat Transfer Behavior at the Metal/Shot

Sleeve of High Pressure Die Casting Process of AZ91D Alloy

Author: Wenbo Yu, Yongyou Cao, Xiaobo Li, Zhipeng Guo, Shoumei Xiong

PII: S1005-0302(16)00031-1
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/doi: 10.1016/j.jmst.2016.02.003
Reference: JMST 652

To appear in: Journal of Materials Science & Technology

Received date: 24-12-2015

Revised date: 20-1-2016
Accepted date: 26-1-2016

Please cite this article as: Wenbo Yu, Yongyou Cao, Xiaobo Li, Zhipeng Guo, Shoumei Xiong,
Determination of Interfacial Heat Transfer Behavior at the Metal/Shot Sleeve of High Pressure
Die Casting Process of AZ91D Alloy, Journal of Materials Science & Technology (2016),
http://dx.doi.org/doi: 10.1016/j.jmst.2016.02.003.

This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service
to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will
undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its
final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could
affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
Determination of Interfacial Heat Transfer Behavior
at the Metal/Shot Sleeve of High Pressure Die
Casting Process of AZ91D Alloy
Wenbo Yu1,2, Yongyou Cao1,2, Xiaobo Li1,2 , Zhipeng Guo1,2, Shoumei Xiong1,2*

1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

2. Laboratory for Advanced Materials Processing Technology, Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing
100084, China

[Received 24 December 2015; Received in revised form 20 January 2016; Accepted 26

January 2016]

* Corresponding author: Prof.; Tel: +86 010 62773793; E-mail: smxiong@tsinghua.edu.cn (S.M. Xiong)

The interfacial heat transfer behavior at the metal/shot sleeve interface in the high

pressure die casting (HPDC) process of AZ91D alloy is carefully investigated. Based on

the temperature measurements along the shot sleeve, inverse method has been developed

to determine the interfacial heat transfer coefficient in the shot sleeve. Under static

condition, Interfacial heat transfer coefficient (IHTC) peak values are 11.9, 7.3, 8.33 kW

m-2 K-1 at pouring zone (S2), middle zone (S5) and end zone (S10), respectively. During

the casting process, the IHTC curve displays a second peak of 6.1 kW m-2 K-1 at middle

zone during the casting process at a slow speed of 0.3 m s-1. Subsequently, when the high

speed started, the IHTC curve reached a second peak of 12.9 kW m-2 K-1 at end zone.

Furthermore, under different slow casting speeds, both the calculated initial temperature

(TIDS) and the maximum temperature (Tsimax) of shot sleeve surface firstly decrease from

Page 1 of 17
0.1 m s-1 to 0.3 m s-1, but increase again from 0.3 m s-1 to 0.6 m s-1. This result agrees

with the experimental results obtained in a series of “plate-shape” casting experiments

under different slow speeds, which reveals that the amount of ESCs decreases to the

minimum values at 0.3 m s-1 and increase again with the increasing casting slow speed.

Keywords: High pressure die casting (HPDC); Interfacial heat transfer behavior; Inverse

method; Slow casting speed

I. Introduction

Among various kinds of casting process, high pressure die casting (HPDC) is more

suitable for mass production due to its higher productive efficiency, capacity of

producing intricate shapes and thin-walled components, good dimensional accuracy and

surface finish, and good mechanical properties[1]. However, defects such as shrinkage

and gas pores are often observed in the cast parts. These defects deteriorate the

mechanical properties of the casting components, which greatly limits the application of

magnesium alloys. Herein, huge work has been done to investigate the casting process,

such as the method of numerical simulation, application of CAD/CAE system, etc[2-6].

When HPDC molten alloy is poured into a relatively cold shot sleeve, the solidification

rate is highly dependent on the interfacial heat transfer behavior in both the shot sleeve

and molten alloy. Finally, this has a significant influence on the microstructure and

defects formation and the consequent mechanical properties of the final product[7]. It has

been proved that the formation of externally solidified crystals (ESCs) in the shot sleeve

strongly depends on the slow shot speed as it can affect the flow behavior and

Page 2 of 17
solidification condition of the molten metal in the shot sleeve before the high speed

injection taking place[7-9]. Otherwise, by accelerating the slow shot speed, the producing

efficiency can be greatly improved. However, it may cause superheat lost and premature

solidification of the molten alloy when it is still in the shoot sleeve, and result in

externally solidified crystals (ESCs) or cold flakes in the casting[10]. To reduce these

defects and achieve an optimized control condition, a thorough understanding of the heat

transfer between the molten metal and the shoot sleeve is mandatory.

The interfacial heat transfer coefficient (IHTC) is always determined by solving the so

called inverse thermal problem. Numerical approaches have been developed and

proposed both in literature [11,12] and our previous work[13,14]. By comparing the

temperature from experiment and from computer simulation, it proves that the results

depend on physical data which must be as accurate as possible[10, 15]. For example,

under non-shooting condition, Helenius et al. [10] placed the thermocouples in the melt

and in the shot sleeve wall. However, the disadvantage of this work is that this

experiment is not carried out in a real casting environment. In addition, there is very little

study in literature concerning the investigation of the heat transfer behavior in the shot

sleeve for the actual HPDC process.

In this work, a specially designed shot sleeve and AZ91D alloy were used in the actual

HPDC experiments on a 350-ton cold chamber die-casting machine to study the

interfacial heat transfer behavior between metal and shot sleeve. By the inverse method,

the evolution of heat transfer behavior has been carefully studied along the shot sleeve.

The effect of different slow shot speed on the interfacial heat transfer behavior has also

Page 3 of 17
been calculated. Furthermore, by applying a ‘‘plate-shape” casting, the influence of slow

shot speed on the specimen microstructure was investigated.

2. Experimental

2.1. Temperature measurement and inverse method

The schemetic experimental procedures are shown in Fig. 1, the experiments were

performed on a TOYO 350 ton die casting machine with an internal sleeve diameter of 60

mm, thickness of 22.5 mm and length of 405 mm. The material of the shot sleeve is H13

steel. The shot sleeve was instrumented with three blocks of thermocouples in the bottom

side along the direction of movement of plunger to collect temperature readings at the

metal-sleeve interface. The thermocouple probes were placed in three different positions:

1) the pouring zone where the melt hit the sleeve, 2) the middle zone, and 3) the end zone

where the melt was injected to the runner. Each of these thermocouple probes comprised

of three pairs of K type thermocouples, sheathed with 0.5 mm in diameter and 0.045 mm

in wire diameter. The temperature measuring points were inside the sleeve wall and

placed 1, 3, and 6 mm from the metal-sleeve interface. Real-time temperature data were

then recorded using Spartan data logging system (96 isolated analog inputs channels)

manufactured by the Integrated Measurement Corporation with a sampling rate of 500 Hz.

The known temperatures at measurement points on the outer wall are utilized to

estimate the heat convection coefficient (qM), fluid temperature and wall temperature on

the inner wall. This inverse problem can be mathematically transformed into an

optimization problem as follows:

J R

  T 
2
F  qM   j ,M  i
 Y j,M i
 m in （1）
j 1 i 1

Page 4 of 17
where i and j are the position and time of temperature measurement, T and Y are the

calculated and experimental temperatures, respectively. R is the measurement point

number of the outer wall, and J is the time step number.

An inverse method[11] was used to determine the heat flux density q and sleeve surface

temperature Tms, which involves the minimization of the function:

R J

  Y 
2
F  j ,r
 T j ,r （2）
r 1 j  0

where R is the number of the future time steps, and J is the number of thermocouples.

2.2. Material characterization

The AZ91D alloy was melted in AMei Magnesium Furnaceat at 680 °C, and was

delivered to the shot sleeve through the heated feeding pipe, the melt was protected with

SF6/N2 cover gas. The composition of AZ91D alloy and H13 steel is shown in Table 1.

Table 2 gives the thermal properties of related materials in this study. After the “plate-

shape” die, as shown in Fig. 2, the specimen were cut from the middle of one plate

(thickness of 2.5 mm) by electro-discharge machining and then mounted in epoxy. The

cross sections of assemblies were ground with silicon carbide and then successively

polished with 6 μm, 3 μm, 1 μm and 0.25 μm diamond suspensions. To avoid the work-

hardening caused by conventional grinding, a chemo-mechanical polishing was

performed using Al2O3 suspension (particle size: 0.04 μm). Subsequently, the specimens

were etched with a diluted acetic acid solution of 50 ml distilled water, 150 ml anhydrous

ethyl alcohol and 1 ml glacial acetic acid to reveal the microstructure.

3. Results and Discussion

Page 5 of 17
3.1 Interfacial heat transfer behavior in the shot sleeve during casting process

Fig. 3 shows the calculated 2D temperature distribution of the metal liquid inside the

shot sleeve during slow filling (a), fast filling (b) and end of filling (c) in the fifth cycle

with casting temperature of 680 °C. During the filling procedure, the casting pressure is

37 MPa; the starting speed of the plunger tip is 0.3 m s-1. Once the end of shot sleeve was

fully filled, the plunger tip was accelerated with a high speed of 5 m s-1 at the position of

230 mm. During this casting procedure, when the liquid metal was poured into the shot

sleeve, the interface temperature of the liquid metal decreased rapidly due to the cold

plunger tip and shot sleeve wall. However, the solidus temperature of AZ91D (481 °C) is

much lower than that of A380 (595 °C), herein, no solidified layer formed from the

pouring gate zone to the end zone, not like the case of A380[16]. Furthermore, as less

heat lost through the radiation between the liquid metal upper surface and the cooling air,

the temperature of the upper metal liquid surface remained at 670 °C, as shown in Fig.

3(a). It should be pointed out that one chilled layer closed to the lower shot sleeve wall

forms as the overheating liquid metal contacts the cold sleeve surface at the pouring gate

zone. Once the plunger tip reached 230 mm with a speed of 0.3 m s-1, the liquid metal

pressure chamber was completely filled with the AZ91D alloy (Fig. 3(b)). In this case,

the liquid metal surface has been totally exposed to the pressure wall, the original

radiation and air convection heat transfer turned into the interfacial heat transfer between

metal liquid and shot sleeve interface. Herein, the temperature of metal liquid dropped

much faster and remained at 580 °C. At the end of filling moment, the liquid metal was

quickly pushed into the cavity with a high speed 5 m s-1, as can be seen in Fig. 3(c).

Page 6 of 17
 Fig. 4 shows the determined results of interfacial heat transfer density and coefficient

obtained from inverse method of AZ91D alloy at three zones, pouring gate zone (S2)

middle zone (S5) and end zone (S10) in the fifth cycle with conventional die-casting

process. At the pouring gate zone (S2), when the liquid metal was poured into the shot

chamber, the lower interfacial liquid metal temperature (Tmi) dropped from 680 °C to

liquidus line 606 °C in 0.89 s with a cooling rate about 193.9 °C s-1, as shown in Fig. 4(a).

After, with the low-speed plunger tip pushing forward the liquid metal, the interfacial

heat transfer density and coefficient rose to the peaks accompanied with some

fluctuations, 2.08 MW m-2 and 11.9 kW m-2 K-1, respectively. Once the plunger tip left

the pouring gate zone, the interface heat transfer coefficient decreased slowly and the

shot sleeve interface began to release the heat to the air.

For the middle zone, during the pouring stage, as shown in Fig. 4(b), the lower liquid

metal surface temperature (Tmi) dropped from 677 °C to liquidus line 606 °C in 0.366 s.

The cooling rate was about 193.9 °C s-1, interfacial heat transfer density reached 2.40

MW m-2. Subsequently, the liquid metal temperature decreased to 580 °C with the

temperature rising in the shot chamber wall to 316 °C. Then the temperature difference

between the metal liquid and shot chamber wall got closer and closer to the minimum,

interfacial heat transfer coefficient reached the first peak of about 7.3 kW m-2 K-1.

Subsequently, interfacial heat transfer coefficient decreased and then reached the second

peak of about 5.9 kW m-2 K-1. This phenomenon can be explained from the movement of

melt metal in the shot sleeve. Firstly, hot liquid metal is poured into the shot sleeve,

which results into the initial peak of the sleeve surface temperature at pouring gate zone

(S2) and middle zone (S5). At the same time, the hot liquid metal cooled and solidified to

Page 7 of 17
form on chilled layer between the liquid metal and shot sleeve, which results into one

non-closed contact between the metal liquid and sleeve surface. This phenomenon

decreases the interfacial heat transfer coefficient. Once the plunger tip was pushed, the

flow of liquid metal remelt the chilled layer and caused the interfacial heat transfer

density and coefficient fluctuations followed with their second peaks, respectively.

For the end zone (S10), as shown in Fig. 4(c), it took 0.77 s for the metal liquid to flow

from pouring moment to the shot sleeve end zone. The surface temperature of the metal

liquid (Tmi) dropped to 613 °C with a cooling rate of 293.8 °C s-1 during 0.228 s. At this

moment, the interfacial heat transfer density quickly rose to a peak of about 2.95 MW m-2.

Subsequently, the interfacial heat transfer density slowly dropped and the temperature of

shot sleeve (Tsi) wall increased. Herein, temperature difference between the shot sleeve

and the metal liquid decreased, the interface heat transfer coefficient rose to a peak about

8.33 kW m-2 K-1. Under the lower speed, the metal liquid filled the shot sleeve chamber

and maintained at 610 °C. Once the high speed started, the interfacial transfer density and

coefficient quickly reached the second peaks, 1.75 MW m-2 and 12.9 kW m-2 K-1,

respectively. Finally, the shot sleeve chamber wall slowly cooled to 392 °C.

3.2 The effect of different slow shot speeds on the interfacial heat transfer behavior

According to the previous study, the effect of turbulence flow caused by different

slow moving speeds can be neglected if the slow casting speed is below the critical value

of 0.75 m s-1 for plate-shape casting[17]. Therefore, we only focus on the influence of

different laminar flow on the heat exchange, as the highest slow casting speed is 0.6 m s-1

in this work. Fig. 5 presents the maximum value of interfacial heat transfer coefficient

Page 8 of 17
(hmax), maximum value of heat flow density (qmax), the initial temperature (TIDS) and

maximum of shot sleeve surface temperature (Tsimax) with different slow casting speeds

under the same high casting speed (5 m s-1). It can be seen the variations of hmax and qmax

are very small from the 0.1 m s-1 to 0.6 m s-1. However, the TIDS and Tsimax firstly

decreased from 0.1 m s-1 to 0.3 m s-1 and then increased slowly from 0.3 m s -1 to 0.6 m s-1,

especially for S2 and S5. Right now, it is necessary to verify our calculation by casting

experiments.

For checking the inverse method calculation, AZ91D was cast in the ‘‘plate-shape”

casting mold under the different slow speeds of 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 m s -1 at 680 ºC and the

relevant microstructures are given in Fig. 6. The percentage of ESCs are quantitative

analyzed by image pro-plus, they were 16.23%, 6.44% and 16.09% at the corresponding

speeds of 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 m s-1, respectively. During the casting process, the

solidification occurs when superheat metal is introduced into a relatively cold shot sleeve,

further nucleation, growth, or remelting occurs depending on the thermal and flow

characteristics. At the slow speed of 0.2 m s-1, the metal liquid stays much longer in the

shot sleeve. Then the dendrite ESCs have much more time to nucleate and grow. At 0.3

m s-1, TIDS and Tsimax decrease to the minimum values, this is aroused from the heat

absorption resulted from the ESCs remelting. Furthermore, with the increasing slow

speed to 0.4 m s-1, as the ESCs do not have enough time to stay in the shot sleeve and to

be remelt, then the content of externally solidified crystals (ESCs) stay for almost the

same time as that in the case of 0.2 m s-1. Herein, less heat absorption occurs at 0.4 m s-1,

TIDS and Tsimax increase again. Here, it should be noted that the defect bands (black lines)

began to appear at the speed of 0.4 m s-1. According to the literature, this phenomenon is

Page 9 of 17
based on the idea of local slip occurring in the dendrite network as a result of fluid past a

stagnant solidifying wall layer[18, 19].

4. Conclusions

(1) Under casting temperature 680 °C and pressure 37 MPa, calculated 2D temperature

distribution of the metal liquid inside the shot sleeve reveals that no solidified layer

formed from the middle zone (S5) to the end zone (S10) except the pouring zone (S2)

during slow filling. With the movement of the plunger, the chilled layer at the pouring

zone was pushed forwards into the die.

(2) Under static condition, IHTC peak values are 11.9, 7.3, 8.33 kW m-2 K-1 at pouring

zone (S2), middle zone (S5) and end zone (S10), respectively. During the casting process,

the IHTC curve displays a second peak of 6.1 kW m-2 K-1 at middle zone during the

casting process at a slow speed of 0.3 m s-1. Subsequently, when the high speed started,

the IHTC curve reached a second peak of 12.9 kW m-2 K-1 at end zone.

(3) Under different slow casting speed, the calculated initial temperature (TIDS) and the

maximum of shot sleeve surface temperature (Tsimax) firstly decrease from 0.1 m s-1 to 0.3

m s-1, but increase again from 0.3 m s-1 to 0.6 m s-1. This result agrees with the

experimental results obtained in a series of “plate-shape” casting experiments under

different slow speed, which reveals that the amount of ESCs decreases to the minimum

values at 0.3 m s-1 and increase again with the increasing slow casting speed. And the

defect bands (black lines) began to appear at the speed of 0.4 m s-1.

Page 10 of 17
Acknowledgement: This work was financially supported by the National Major

Science and Technology Program of China (No. 2012ZX04012011) and the National

Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51275269).

References

1. S. Ji, F. Yan, Z. Fan, Mater. Sci. Eng. A 626 (2015) 165-174.

2. N. El-Mahallawy, J. Mater. Process. Technol. 73(1) (1998) 125-138.

3. A. Hamasaiid, Eleventh International Conference on Modeling of Casting, Welding and

Advanced Solidification Processes, The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) (2006).

4. L. Jia, S. Xiong, B. Liu, J. Mater. Sci. Technol. 16 (2000) 269-272.

5. W. Zhang, S. Xiong, B. Liu, J. Mater. Process. Technol. 63 (1997) 707-711.

6. M. Wu, S. Xiong, Acta Metall. Sin. 46 (2010) 1534-1542 (in Chinese).

7. H. Laukli, The effect of solidification of metal prior to injection in HPDC on the grain size

distribution in a complex die casting. High Pressure Die Casting of Aluminium and Magnesium

Alloys-Grain Structure and Segregation Characteristics, 2002: p. 45.

8. H. Laukli, Int. J. Cast Met. Res. 16 (2003) 515-521.

9. M. Wu, S. Xiong, J. Mater. Sci. Technol. 27 (2011) 1150-1156.

10. R. Helenius, Mater. Sci. Eng. A 413 (2005) 52-55.

11. J. Beck, B. Blackwell, A. Haji-Sheikh, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 39 (1996) 3649-3657.

12. G. Dour, J. Mater. Process. Technol. 169 (2005) 223-233.

13. Z. Guo, S. Xiong, H. Cho, J. Choi, Acta Metall. Sin. 43 (2007) 607-611 (in Chinese).

14. Z. Guo, S. Xiong, B. Liu, M. Li, J. Allison, Metall. Mater. Trans. A 39 (2008) 2896-2905.

Page 11 of 17
15. P. Cleary, Appl. Math. Model. 26 (2002) 171-190.

16. Y. Cao, Z. Guo, S. Xiong. Acta Metall. Sin. 51 (2015) 745-752 (in Chinese).

17. J. López, , J. Manuf. Sci. Eng. 125 (2003) 529-537.

18. C. Gourlay, A.K. Dahle, H.I. Laukli, Metall. Mater. Trans. A 35 (2004) 2881-2891.

19. A.K. Dahle, D.H. StJohn, Acta Mater. 47 (1998) 31-41.

Figures Captions

Fig. 1. Schematic description of experimental setup of the shot sleeve including the cross

section. Length unit is mm.

Fig. 2. Configuration of plate-shape casting.

Fig. 3. Calculated 2D temperature distribution of the metal inside the shot sleeve during

slow filling (a), fast filling (b) and end of filling (c).

Fig. 4. Typical calculated and measured results of shot sleeve at S2 (a), S5 (b) and S10

(c). (Tmu, Tmi—temperatures of the metal upper surface and interface; Tsi—shot sleeve

surface temperature; T1 and T6—measured temperatures at 1 and 6 mm from interface in

the shot sleeve; T3c—calculated temperature at 3 mm from interface in the shot sleeve).

Fig. 5. Statistics of calculated values under different pouring temperature at three

positions (S2 S5 and S10) in the fifth casting cycle: (a) hmax, (b) qmax, (c) TIDS and (d)

Tsimax.

Fig. 6. ESCs distribution in the cross section of 2.5 mm plate after the “plate-shape” cast

under different slow speeds, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 m s-1.

Page 12 of 17
Fig. 1

Page 13 of 17
Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Page 14 of 17
Fig. 4

Page 15 of 17
Fig. 5

Fig. 6

Page 16 of 17
Table 1. Chemical composition of AZ91D alloy and H13 steel (wt%)

Al Zn Mn Si Fe Cu Ni Be Mg
AZ91D
9.02 0.66 0.199 0.0311 0.0010 0.0023 0.0007 0.0010 Bal.
C Mn Si S P Cr Mo V Fe
H13
0.396 0.36 0.94 <0.005 <0.025 5.05 1.25 0.82 Bal.

Table 2. Thermal properties of related materials

Thermal properties AZ91D H13

-1 -1 a
Thermal conductance λ (W m K ) 72 31.2 – 0.013 T
-1 -1
Specific heat Cp (J kg K ) 1050 478 – 0.219 T
-3
Density ρ (kg m ) 1810 7730 – 0.24 T
Solidus temperature TS (°C) 470 1471
Liquidus temperature TL (°C) 595 1404
-1
Latent heat Ls (J kg ) 373000 209350
a
T stands for temperature (°C).

Page 17 of 17