Design and Development of LM24 plate Casting using Solid Cast Simulation Technique

Abstract

This research deals with the elimination of defects in aluminium alloy castings and enhancement in the casting yield and quality. The main intention of the work is to improve the quality of a cast component using Computer Aided Casting Simulation Software. SOLID Cast simulation software is used for simulating the solidification process of casting and visualizing outputs showing possible problematic areas or defects which may occur in the cast product. Plate Castings of aluminium alloy - LM 24 are produced with different designs of gating systems and tested for defects like porosity using Archimedes immersion Technique and also Radiographic testing is used to check the quality of the castings. The produced castings are observed to be sound, and the results obtained are in agreement with the simulation results. Hence it is verified that solidification simulation helps in improving the quality of castings without any shop-floor trails. Casting yield and percentage porosity values are determined for 12 castings produced with different gating systems. The best results are observed to be produced by the castings having a 1-Ingate system in horizontal or lateral positions.

Introduction

I. introduction

Sand casting is a manufacturing process for making intricate shapes of metal materials in large production. There are two main consecutive stages, the filling process and the solidification process, in casting production. in the filling process gating system composed of a pouring cup, runner, sprue well and ingate, is designed to guide liquid metal filling.  Riser system is used to compensate for shrinkage caused by casting solidification. It is unavoidable that many different defects occur in the casting process, such as porosity and incomplete filling. how to improve the casting quality becomes important.  Casting quality is heavily dependent on the success of gating/riser system design, which currently is conducted mainly relying on technicians’ experience. Therefore, there is a need for the improvement of a computer-aided sand casting process design tool with CAD, simulation or analysis, and optimization functions to ensure the quality of  the casting.

II. literature review

1. SachinL. Nimbulkar et al. Sand casting is a manufacturing process to make different shapes of metal materials; many researchers reported that 90 per cent of the defects obtained in casting are only because of improper design of the feeding and gating system. The main objective was to study the existing design of the feeding and gating system, to improve the feeding and gating system using Auto CAST X1 sand casting simulation software to prepare the mould and cast the part, to compare the experimental result and simulated results, and to reduce the rejection rate.
2. Swaroop S.Magdum et al. - This study deals with the process of casting various intricate shapes manufactured and that involves creating a hollow cavity inside a sand mould and then pouring the liquid metal directly into the sand mould cavity. Having a proper gating system is very important in the sand casting process for quality, defects-free sand casting and higher yield. The sand casting process is very uncertain even in a completely controlled process defects are found which challenging to find the causes of sand casting defects. In the simulation or analysis technique, the gating system is designed numerically and by that dimensions, the 3Dimension  model of the gating and cavity is modelled and the optimized gating system is finalized.
3. Sanni Dev et al. This study deals with an endeavour to synthesize a hybrid metal matrix composite by taking Al piston alloy (LM 26) as base material and Porcelain ceramic particles as reinforcement. The hybrid metal matrix composites were fabricated with 2 weight % 4 weight % 6 weight % and 8 weight % porcelain-filled LM26 AL alloy, through a cost-effective liquid metallurgy course i.e. The void fraction decreases from 0.58% to 0.36% by increasing weight % of porcelain from 0 weight % to 6 weight % and then increase to 0.65% for 8 weight % addition of porcelain in a matrix material. The microhardness increased by 10% by adding 8 weight % porcelain to LM26 master alloy. Similarly, the tensile strength was increased by 20% for 6 weight % addition of porcelain. All the tested physical and mechanical properties of fabricated composites were superior compared to the LM 26 master alloy.

A. Gaps in Literature Review

From the literature survey, it has been observed that little amount of work is available on the design of castings for the aluminium LM24 alloy sand mould casting process. No work is available on the effect of different gating systems on the quality, %porosity and yield of castings.

Hence an effort is made to design different gating systems for LM24 material and study the effect of different gating systems on the quality of casted components.

Conclusion

The results of simulation are in good accordance with that of experimentation. The defects like solidification shrinkage, cracks, unfilled riser and incomplete mould cavity are completely eliminated from the casting. The X-ray radiograph of the plates taken, shows that there were no major defects in the castings. The result obtained from this experiment shows that gating system design is one of the essential factors to produce good quality of casting product. From the experimental results, it is concluded that among all the casting designs, design of Experiment no. -11 i.e. 1-Gate (in horizontal position) is the best design as it gives the highest casting yield of 74.55% and the least percentage porosity of 3.17.

References

[1] Sachin L.Nimbulkar, Rajendra S.Dalu“Design optimization of gating and feeding system through simulation technique for sand casting of wear plate” [2] Swaroop S. Magdum, Baliram R. Jadhav “Design and Development of Casting by Simulation Technique for Yield Improvement in Foundry Industry” International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET), Volume 3 Issue VI, June 2015, ISSN: 2321-9653, IC Value: 13.98 [3] C. M. Choudharia, B. E. Narkhede, S. K. Mahajan “Casting Design and Simulation of Cover Plate using Auto CAST-X Software for Defect Minimization with Experimental Validation” [4] Uday A. Dabade Rahul, C. Bhedasgaonkar “Casting Defect Analysis using Design of Experiments (DoE) and Computer Aided Casting Simulation Technique”

Copyright

Copyright © 2024 Kamal Ahmed, Adnan Ahmed, Syed Ateeb Ahmed, Syed Adnan. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.