Tips & Tricks

Parallel processing

“To pull a bigger wagon, it is easier to add more horses than to grow a gigantic horse.” This paraphrased quotation nicely expresses the basic concept of parallel processing. The speed of sequential computers has been doubling every eighteen months, according to Moore’s law. However, at any given time, that speed is limited by the state of the art in integrated circuit design and manufacturing. To circumvent that limitation, it is possible to split a given computationally intensive task among multiple processors working simultaneously.

The manufacturing of sand cores

The manufacturing of iron, steel and non-ferrous castings is achieved using a variety of casting process designs, and most of these involve the use of sand cores which form the internal shape of the casting. A good quality casting requires a good quality core. Dimensional stability, uniform density, strength, hardness and permeability are some of the characteristics that need to be controlled. A good core must have suffi cient strength and hardness to be handled and to resist during the pouring of liquid metal. Suffi cient permeability is also necessary for the escape of gases generated during the casting process. The diff erent manufacturing processes and some of the issues related to core production will be discussed here.

Critical issues in modelling investment casting

Reduce part development lead-times by a better knowledge of process and an early confi rmation of metallurgical capabilities is one of the main topics for investment casting technology. Numerical simulation is one of the major tools which can be used to face this goal. This e-tip illustrates a simulation methodology usable to optimize a casting design in an effi cient and rapid way.

FLEXlm protection file system

ESI group needs to license, manage and track a variety of licensing options, platform and product dependencies. FLEXlm is one of the only software that is up to this task. A simple, shrinkwrapped license management product would not be powerful and flexible enough to license all ESI products.

The challenge of simulating casting and heat treatment

Foundries that have implemented casting simulation to shorten development time, further wish to use simulation in order to reduce the cost of subsequent processing steps. This often requires the simulation of heat treatment.

Why is it important to have coupled stress calculations?

Casting process issues related to hot tearing and cracking of the casting, thermal fatigue of dies and prediction of the final shape of a part are a challenge for foundries. Powerful, multi-physics simulation tools are now available to address them. This e-tip will consider the advantages of a fully coupled thermal, fluid flow and stress analysis of casting, in particular in view of the above mentioned challenges.

Thermomechanical modelling of continuous casting

Two application examples are showing new possibilities to take into account stress and deformation by the simulation of continuous casting processes. The variability of the presented examples prove that the proposed method is not limited to a certain class of applications, dimension and alloy composition. Since the gap formation can now be taken into account, the results are expected to be much more precise. This approach opens a wide field of application in order to better understand and control the heat transport in continuous casting processes.

Modeling the solidification of cast irons

Successfully modeling solidification of Cast Iron is of great help for the foundries to reduce their production costs and thus to increase their profits. If the basic physical solidification phenomena are correctly modeled by the simulation tools mold risering can really be optimized.

Why it is useful to describe problems in terms of non-dimensional parameters and which ones are the main important in solidification?

A dimensionless quantity is a quantity without any physical units. Such a number is typically defi ned as a product or ratio of quantities which do have units, in such a way that all units cancel. Dimensionless quantities are widely used in the fields of physics and engineering but also in every day life.

Working with Solids in CFD-GEOM - Part 1: Boolean Operations

Given that today’s users may import several complex parts into CFD-GEOM, this tip will demonstrate how to use the Solid Boolean Union Option to combine several parts into one.