High-volume casting businesses and the automotive sector have utilized casting simulation software for decades. Simulation software has proven highly effective for the molten metal casting process. Due to recent computational power and software improvements, low- and medium-production casting facilities can now use this product.
Typically, the design process accounts for only 5% of the product cost, yet it impacts as much as 70-80% of the overall manufacturing cost. Casting simulation software becomes a prominent option for businesses that want to decrease their time-to-market, enhance product quality, and cut costs when considering that roughly 90% of the production process and related quality concerns are attributed to the design.
Benefits Of Simulation Software for Molten Metal Casting
Casting simulation software allows the designer to see how the molten metal casting will solidify before making expensive tooling and other potentially costly errors. The software simulates the entire process from pouring to solidification to shrinkage. After the 3-D design transitions, the system controls the design process, providing details on risers, sprues, and gating, including their quantity, placement, size, and shape.
The product and process are fine-tuned to produce the best possible outcome as the engineering team uses the outcome of the simulation to redesign the process to enhance product quality and production yield.
The intuitive software and ease of modification allow a quick turnaround with rapid prototyping and faster time-to-market. This software can eliminate the dilemmas associated with bringing a new product online. Historical molten metal casting headaches such as high scrap and defects, process instability, and a trial-and-error approach to problem-solving are no longer a concern.
Below is a list of the many benefits of casting simulation software.
Overall Benefits:
- Optimize the mold design
- Easily simulate the most challenging 3D product
- Excellent runner & sprue design
- No unnecessary tooling changes
- Ideal stroke length
- Optimum gate selection
- Proper die coating material selection and thickness
- Reduce time-to-market
- Time savings to pursue/design other projects
Predict and eliminate defects and improve product quality:
- Predict laminar flow and eliminate turbulence and parting lines (erosion, inclusions, and air entrainment)
- Understand the hardening and recovery process
- Blow holes
- Cold shuts
- Distortion
- Evaluate thermal gradient (contraction, cracking, and splitting)
- Grain structure
- Hard spots
- Identify hot spots (inclusions)
- Predict the impact of shadowing and multi parts on the solidification
- Porosity
- Shrinkage
- Simulate Polycrystal deformation, predict the microstructure of the final product and determine the final in-use part properties such as hardness, and residual stresses
- Optimize the various casting processes
- Alloy selection
- Cooling water flow rate
- Cooling water temperature
- Degasification
- Flux solidification temperature
- Flux viscosity and density
- Injection/pouring time
- Injection pressure
- Material temperature
- Plunger speed
- Pouring velocity
Aside from the software benefits, there are several other measurable advantages.
Potential Short-Term and Long-Term Benefits:
- Calculate actual job costs for accurate quotations
- Improve competitiveness
- Increase market share
- Improve product quality
- Increase return on investment (ROI)
- No lengthy prototyping (Time-to-Market)
- Optimized process parameters
- Reduce design phase costs
- Reduce lead times
- Reduce process scrap
- Reduce production time and costs
- Reduced prototyping costs
- Reduced tooling costs
These benefits are measured and could easily be applied to support software justification. Sophisticated simulation software is taking the design process in the casting industry to the next level, and the competition is getting on board (if they haven’t already).
Consider Transvalor Americas Software
When it comes to casting simulation software, Transvalor Americas is an excellent investment. We offer a broad portfolio of benchmark casting simulation software for metallic solids, liquid metals, and polymers. All Transvalor Americas software is developed on the same user interface. Exceptional local technical support is available for all products, and most software includes a built-in problem solver.
Our software selection includes:
- Casting
- Forging and Hot Metal Forming
- Microstructure Analysis and Evolution
- Cold Metal Forming
- Heat Treatment
- Welding and Assembly
- Polyurethane Foam Injection
And those who prefer to test the waters before they jump in, Transvalor Americas also offers consulting and simulation services for projects requiring optimization and validation. Onsite and online training is also available to get your team up and running quickly. This training addresses issues specific to your industry and organization.
Learn More
Consider the benchmark software by Transvalor Americas. We carry 3-D simulation software for different types of molten metal casting processes, including the industry's best technical support and problem-solving built into the casting software. Contact Transvalor USA to learn how casting simulation software takes the design process in an organization to the next level.
