Objective
A new controlled casting technology has been developed for thin complex shaped castings.
Thin ductile iron (TDI) castings with minimum wall thickness of 3 mm can be produced free of primary carbides with new procedures with standard modern foundry equipment, based on gravity pouring (maximum overall dimension 200x200x100 mm). The newly developed production procedures for TDI castings concern an optimized nodulization and inoculation method balanced with the chemical composition of the ductile iron. The microstructure of a TDI casting free of cementite has a typical nodule count of 1500 to 3000 graphite nodules mm {-2}. The microstructure of TDI shows more perfect ball shaped graphite nodules than usual for (thicker) ductile iron without deterioration effects at the surface and the strength properties are higher with a lower elongation compared with usual ductile iron.
The TDI prototypes showed endurance life properties on a higher level than for the replaced welded steel assemblies.
Finite element stress analysis codes provided only qualitative surface stresses and relatively bad calculation efficiency. Also, a costs reduction and/or weight reduction up to 50% can be realized when welded steel assemblies and ductile iron casting of conventional thickness are replaced by TDI castings. The mould filling stage is of crucial importance for the microstructures locally in the casting. For modelling the free surface during mould filling successfully a solution principle is selected based on the Van Leer scheme.
A 3-dimensional computer code dedicated for TDI casting has been developed and used for simulating the mould filling of TDI castings. It was also found that when liquid metal fills a thin cross section casting, the surface tension should be taken into account, especially for horizontal casting. A newly developed microscopic solidification code provided in combination with the dedicated 3-dimensional mould filling code, microstructures (nodule counts) which are in good agreement with experiments.
THERE IS AN INCREASING DEMAND FROM DESIGN-ENGINEERS, ESPECIALLY IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY FOR THIN-WALLED NODULAR CAST IRON WITH HIGH REQUIREMENTS CONCERNING DIMENSIONAL ACCURACY, MECHANICAL AND FRACTURE TOUGHNESS PROPERTIES.
THE PRODUCTION OF THESE CASTINGS WITH MINIMUM WALL THICKNESS OF 3 MM AND A HOMOGENEOUS FULL FERRITIC, PEARLITIC-FERRITIC OR PEARLITIC MATRIX STRUCTURE AS CAST IS MUCH MORE CRITICAL THAN THE REGULAR CAST IRON GRADES.
THE OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH PROGRAMME ARE:
1. TO QUANTIFY THE MODIFICATIONS OF FOUNDRY PROCEDURES NECESSARY FOR A CONTROLLED PRODUCTION OF THIN-WALLED CASTINGS AND TO DEFINE THE LIMITATIONS CAUSED BY THE EXISTING MELTING AND MOULDING INSTALLATIONS AND METHODS.
2. TO DEVELOP NEW INOCULANTS AND INOCULATION METHODS TO AVOID THE OCCURENCE OF UNDESIRED CARBIDES AND THE VARYING EFFECT ON SHRINKAGE.
3. TO DEVELOP A MATHEMATICAL SIMULATION PROGRAMME FOR MOULD FILLING, SOLIDIFICATION AND TRANSFORMATION TO CALCULATE AN OPTIMAL GATING AND FEEDING SYSTEM AND PRODUCTION CONDITIONS WHICH GUARANTEES REQUIRED PROPERTIES ON EVERY SPOT OF THE CASTING.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry inorganic compounds
- engineering and technology mechanical engineering vehicle engineering automotive engineering
- natural sciences mathematics applied mathematics mathematical model
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Coordinator
1970 CA Ijmuiden
Netherlands
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