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 Shot sleeve

(allow air to escape and
force melt to freeze)

Die parts
Meshing

Polyhedral mesh in cast part and die

Cell count: 1.6 million cells in fluid domains

3.6 million cells overall
Structured (extruded) mesh
in shot sleeve
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
Empty
Shot withwalls
filling
sleeve melt
chamber
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 Time = 2.05 seconds Time = 2.06 seconds

Velocity on
melt surface
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 = 640°C Initial melt temperature = 680°C

Animated mold filling process with piston movement

Initial melt temperature = 680°C

Tliquidus = 613°C
Tsolidus = 555°C
 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