Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer Simulations of the Cooling System in Low Pressure Die Casting

Year 2020, Volume: 16 Issue: 2, 161 - 168, 24.06.2020

Onur Ozaydin , S. Fatih Kırmızıgöl , Sercan Acarer , Elvan Armakan

Abstract

Low pressure die casting (LPDC) is
the preferred method to manufacture cost-effective automotive wheels. Cooling
systems and channels of a low pressure die casting are critical to obtain
better mechanical properties. Both steady-state and time-dependent (transient) Computational
Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses of the cooling channels and the die cooling
system, both in conjugate and solid-only models, are performed and the pipe
flow part of the results are compared with the available experimental data.
Pipes operate at a schedule transiently, therefore a complex time-dependent
simulation is required. The aim is to construct a simplified approach in which
only the solids (die and cast wheel) are considered and pipe cooling is
represented by heat transfer coefficient distribution obtained from the much
faster steady-state simulations. Successful results are obtained by
significantly reducing the computational time while retaining the same accuracy.
Finally, cooling channels with eight different diameter stream-wise
distributions are analyzed to explore their impact on pipe exit velocity and
mass flow rate as a guidance towards future works. Wheels are cast with the
simulated cooling system and are approved
by mechanical tests.

Keywords

CFD, Conjugate Heat Transfer, Cooling Channels, Mass Flow Rate, Simulation

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