Project Executive Summary (English)

          The actual world foundry industry production is about 100 Millions tons per year castings (steel, cast iron and Al, Mg, Cu - based alloys), to sustain important industries (automotive industry, machine tools, equipments fabrication etc). Simultaneously, more than 30 millions tons of metallic materials are lost each year, most of them due to contraction defects. The removal of such defects is possible through technological measures which will control the solidification and cooling process, with a  great impact on the castings quality, the specific liquid alloy, energy, secondary materials and labor consumption. 

           The present project has the intention of elaborating, testing and validating a combined system of thermal/dimensional solidification and cooling analysis aimed at meeting the demand of metallic alloy casting technologies, in accord with the alloy nature and chemical composition, with the mould nature and with the alloy behaviour during casting. The resulted integrated system has  been conceived to be an easy adaptable instrument to research and directly foundry applications. 

             This system will be flexible, accommodating different types of alloys and different types of moulds.  Furthermore, this system will be aware of the alloy volume variation during solidification and cooling (a possible increase or decrease of the specific volume during the cooling stage). From the point of view of the solidification processes in the case of alloy casting, the software and simulation methodology which will be conceived will allow the study of thermal and dimensional processes that accompany the solidification process and also of the degree of compaction, in real conditions regarding the mould filling and alloy solidification. It will be possible to emphasize through simulations the influence of feeders, and also of the casting network, on the degree of  compaction as a function of their performance during solid.