Recent advances in hot tearing during casting of aluminium alloys

Hot tearing is one of the most severe and irreversible casting defects for many metallic materials. In 2004, Eskin et al. published a review paper in which the development of hot tearing of aluminium alloys was evaluated (Eskin and Suyitno, 2004). Sixteen years have passed and this domain has undergone considerable development. Nevertheless,...

Sensitivity of numerical predictions to the permeability coefficient in simulations of melting and solidification using the enthalpy-porosity method

The high degree of uncertainty and conflicting literature data on the value of the permeability coefficient (also known as the mushy zone constant), which aims to dampen fluid velocities in the mushy zone and suppress them in solid regions, is a critical drawback when using the fixed-grid enthalpy-porosity technique for modelling non-isothermal...

Modeling and simulation of phase-transitions in multicomponent aluminum alloy casting

The casting process of aluminum products involves the spatial distribution of alloying elements. It is essential that these elements are uniformly distributed in order to guarantee reliable and consistent products. This requires a good understanding of the main physical mechanisms that affect the solidification, in particular the thermodynamic...

Evolution of morphology in solidifying aluminium alloys

In the thesis two different models of solidification of aluminum alloys are presented and analyzed. The first 1--D solidification model is derived from the conservation of solute, heat and mass. With numerical experiments it is shown that simulations with the Finite Difference discretization must adhere a relation similar to the Courant...