Struct Multidisc Optim (2009) 39:519530 DOI 10.

1007/s00158-008-0340-6

INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION

Feeder growth: a new method for automatic optimal feeder design in gravity casting processes
R. Tavakoli P. Davami

Received: 4 July 2007 / Revised: 4 July 2008 / Accepted: 10 November 2008 / Published online: 14 January 2009 Springer-Verlag 2008

Abstract The optimal feeder design in gravity casting processes is considered. The design problem is formulated as an additive, growth-like, evolutionary topology optimization problem. The initial design of the presented method is a casting part which is placed in a suitable environmental mould box. The method is composed of three stages: determining the feeder-neck connection point on the casting surface, constructing the feeder-neck and the feeder growth. During the growth stage, the feeder topology is changed gradually until satisfying some predened criteria. The design of multiple feeders is also considered in this work. In the presented method, feeders are designed in a descending order of their sizes. The success of the proposed method is supported by an illustrative example. Keywords Casting process optimization Growth method Riser design Topology optimization

1 Introduction Metal castings are fundamental building blocks, their three-dimensional integral shapes indispensable to practically all other manufacturing industries. Although the manufacturing path from the liquid to the nished shape seems to be a very direct process, it involves several difculties. This is because many sub-

processes need to be controlled simultaneously, including melting, alloying, moulding, pouring, solidication, nishing, etc. Every one of these aspects has to be correct, since failure of only one will probably cause the casting to fail. One of these difculties arises from the volumetric shrinkage during the metal solidication (Campbell 2003). Since the molten metal shrinks in volume during solidication1 in the mold cavity, a portion of fresh molten metal should be fed to make up for the shrinkage. However, since the fresh molten metal can not be fed to an isolated non-solidied metal completely surrounded by solidied metal, porosity defects such as a cavity and other void regions are formed therein. The formed cavity is called a shrinkage cavity which is one of the serious casting defects. Feeders are appended to the casting to compensate the solidication shrinkage by providing the directional solidication such that the last solidication points are conducted to the feeders. The feeders are cut off and recycled after the complete solidication. Therefore, the design of the feeding system, includes number, position, size and shape of feeders, is a key to produce sound castings. Furthermore, it is desired to reduce the volume of feeders to decrease the production cost. In recent years, a number of papers have been published which report the success of numerical optimization methods to optimize the design of feeding system in shape casting processes (Tortorelli et al. 1994; Morthland et al. 1995; Lewis et al. 2000, 2001, 2004).
general, liquids contract in freezing because of the arrangement of atoms from a rather open random close-packed arrangement to a regular crystalline array of signicantly denser packing.
1 In

R. Tavakoli (B) P. Davami Department of Material Science and Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, P.O. Box 11365-9466, Tehran, Iran e-mail: tav@mehr.sharif.ir

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In these works, the optimal feeder design is formulated as a shape optimization problem which is solved by gradient based minimization methods. The objective function to be minimized is dened as the feeder volume and the constraints are dened such that the directional solidication along a-priori dened feeding path is provided. The main disadvantages of the works mentioned above are: high computational cost due to the direct sensitivity analysis, needing a nearly feasible initial design and needing a-priori dened feeding path. To overcome these limitations, in (Tavakoli and Davami 2007b) topology optimization based on SIMP approach is adapted to nd the best feeder-topology for a prescribed value of the feeder volume. In (Tavakoli and Davami 2008a, b), a subtractive evolutionary topology optimization method is suggested to automate the optimal design of feeder in the sand casting process. In the present study a new method for automatic optimal feeder design in gravity casting processes is presented. This method takes the casting (without feeders) as an input geometry and automatically designs its feeders so that the nal design will be free from the shrinkage defects (or remained defects will be smaller than a user dened threshold). The computational efciency is an outstanding feature of the presented method which increases its feasibility to use in real-world applications. Furthermore, the ease of implementation makes it possible to integrate the presented approach to available commercial casting simulation packages.

for every feeder. This step is essential when there are multiple hot spots with different solidication times. Principles mentioned above (adapted from: Ravi 2005), are automatically taken into account in our algorithm, i.e., the rst feeder is the biggest one which is designed for the heaviest part of the casting with maximum shrinkage defects. In the same way, the second designed feeder is the second rank biggest feeder and nally the last designed feeder is the smallest one. In this way, it is assumed that the smaller feeders do not have considerable effects on the solidication condition of their corresponding bigger feeders (feeders that are designed former). This assumption could be feasible when the original casting needs some feeders with various dimensions, or when multiple feeders with approximately the same size are required in which these feeders have not considerable effects on the solidication condition of each others (e.g. there are some light sections between heavy sections of the casting). If these assumptions are not satised, the nal design is not essentially optimal (see Section 3) and it may be sub-optimal (notice that the nal design produces the sound casting, however its casting-yield may not be desirable). In the following sub-sections the above steps is discussed in details and nally the overall algorithm is presented.

2.1 Initialization In this step, the casting geometry (without feeder), physical properties and boundary conditions are dened by the user. The initial mould box dimensions are determined based on the casting dimensions and the minimum sand thickness between the cast and mould surfaces which is denoted by lmin . This parameter is determined based on the conceptual casting process design principles (e.g. see: ASM-Handbook 1988; Brown 1994; Campbell 2003, 2004; Ravi 2005). In this context, the casting weight and its heavy section thickness are usually used to compute lmin . Determining the mould box dimensions, it is discretised by a uniform Cartesian grid based on the spatial mesh size x, which is an input parameter. This procedure is usually called voxelization and each mesh is called a voxel. The open-source software package CartGen (Tavakoli 2007) has been used for the voxelization purpose in the present study. CartGen reads x, lmin and the casting geometry as a stereolithography (STL) le, and then produces the voxelized geometry which is a three dimensional array contains the material code F. The material code of each voxel i, j, k is equal to one if it is located inside the casting and zero otherwise.

2 Automatic optimal feeder design In this section, an algorithm for automatic optimal feeder design in gravity casting processes is presented. The design of each feeder includes the following main steps in this study: initialization, solidication analysis and defect prediction, defect distribution to nd a suitable point on the casting surface to connect the feederneck, feeder-neck design and nally the feeder growth. If there is only one major hot spot inside the casting, the feeder should be connected to the casting face closest to the hot spot. Two or more isolated hot spots located far apart will require multiple feeders, one for each hot spot. If there are several hot spots with different solidication times, the feeder can be rst designed for the hottest one, followed by analysis to verify if the same feeder can also feed any other hot spots. Then another feeder is designed for the next largest hot spot, and so on (Ravi 2005). The task defect distribution step in the current study is to determine the location of the feeder-neck connection point on the casting surface

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Based on the F-eld the cast domain, cast , and the mold domain, mold , are determined automatically. The nal task of the initialization step is to dene the surface design space design . It is dened as a subset of the casting surface cast , which is feasible for the connection of the feeder-neck. A crude denition of design is design = cast . However, in order to generate a practically feasible design, infeasible surfaces should be excluded from cast with the aid of user contribution and/or computer aided geometric reasoning. Considering the fettling, cutting and machining procedures, the connection of the feeder-neck to curved surfaces, in particular concave surfaces, should be avoided as much as possible. Therefore, the local surface curvature (, ), is a good measure to determine the infeasibility of a surface patch. In this context, it is possible to dene a critical curvature threshold c > 0, and to exclude a surface patch with || > c . The surface curvature can be computed from the following relation = n |n| (1)

one isolated hot-spot inside the casting, particularly with different local solidication times, the automatic selection of the feeder-neck connection points would be indeed a very difcult task. For this purpose, in this study the defect-eld is smoothed and distributed inside the casting such that the effect of internal defects are transferred to the casting surfaces in a suitable way. The following Helmhotlz-like equation is used to distribute the defect-eld in this study:
D + ( D) = d in
cast ,

D n = 0

on

cast

(2) where d is the predicted defect eld, D is the distributed (and smoothed) defect eld, > 0 is a scaler that controls the length scale of diffusion ( = 1 in this study), is the spatially variable defect diffusion coefcient and cast denotes a portion of the spatial domain includes the original casting (without feeder). Note that the isotropic distribution of defects in the cast media is not desired, but it is prefered to have more defect diffusion to warmer parts and less defect diffusion to colder parts. For this purpose, the defect diffusion coefcient, , is selected based on the local freezing time. In the present study is equal to the local freezing time. It is worth nothing that, when the reduced shrinkage model is used to predict the defect-eld (see Appendix 2), effects of defects are usually (not always) appeared in the casting surface, however there is not a sufcient contrast between surface points to select a suitable feeder-neck connection point. The solution of (2) not only transfers effects of internal defects to the casting surfaces in a consistent way, but also provides a sufcient contrast between surface points to select the location of the feeder-neck connection point. To solve (2), we use the traditional central difference method and SOR method to solve the resulted linear system of equations. Since an accurate solution of (2) is not essential in this study, 100 SOR iterations with over-relaxation factor = 1.5 is used to solve (2) here. After computing the distributed defect eld, it is scaled by a suitable scaling factor. The scaling parameter, Sd , is selected such that the maximum values of D and d become the same. Finally a cast surface voxel with the largest value of defect (based on the distributed defect eld, D) which is member of design is selected as the feeder-neck connection point. 2.4 Feeder-neck design After determining the feeder-neck connection point, a suitable feeder-neck should be designed on the casting surface. This step is performed by using the conceptual

where n is the local outward normal vector on the cast surface. It is important to note that for complicated geometries, more advanced surface geometric reasoning may be required for consistent denition of design . Therefore, applying a smart geometric reasoning module increases feasibility of the presented method in real-world applications. Since more details about geometric reasoning issue is beyond the scope of the current study, the interested readers are referred to classic computational geometry literature such as Refs. (Sack and Urrutia 2000; Goodman and ORourke 2004). Furthermore, it would be useful to benet from the user contribution to dene design . 2.2 Defect prediction In this step, the defect eld in the casting is determined solving the energy equation (see: Appendix 1) coupled with a suitable solidication-induced defect prediction method (see: Appendix 2). 2.3 Defect distribution One of the main important steps during the feeder design is selecting a suitable point on the casting surface to connect the feeder-neck(s). If there is only one major hot spot inside the casting, selection of the hottest point (or a point with the maximum local freezing time) on the casting surface which is member of design can be a feasible choice. However, when there are more than

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feeder-neck design principles, computer-aided geometric reasoning and solidication simulation. The user contribution can be included in this step to achieve a better design. Depending on the position, feeders may be classied as top and side. The top feeders are placed above the hot spot, whereas the side feeders are placed at the side of the hot spot, usually at the parting line. A top feeder is more effective because of the additional effect of gravity. In the present study based on unit normal vector (n) at the connection point of the feeder-neck, the type of feeder is determined. The shape of the feeder-neck depends on the feeder position and the connected portion of the casting. The most widely used neck shapes are cylindrical (in top cylindrical feeders) and rectangular (mainly for side feeders). The neck may be tapered down towards the casting Ravi (2005). In the present study the feederneck shape is automatically indicated based on the feeder type and the position of the feeder-neck connection point. The dimensions of the feeder-neck are determined based on available conceptual design rules (e.g. see: ASM-Handbook 1988; Brown 1994; Campbell 2003, 2004; Ravi 2005). For this purpose, we modify the conceptual design principles based on the Chvorinov rule for casting solidication time. Based on the Chvorinov rule the solidication time of a casting is approximated by the following relation:
2 t f = BMc =

Vc is the casting volume and Ac is the surface area trough it heat is lost. The constant parameter B can be computed by some numerical experiments. To do this, it is sufcient to simulate the solidication of a-priori designed part with known geometric modulus (e.g. a box), after determining its solidication time, B can be computed form (4). Since in the present study the casting solidication time is known from the simulation result, the simulation modulus Mc , is determined from the following relation Mc = tf B
1/2

(4)

The simulation modulus is used instead of castings geo metrical modulus in the present study. Knowing Mc and the feeder-neck shape, the feeder-neck dimensions are determined based on the available conceptual feederneck design rules. The admissible design domain of the feeder-neck is denoted by neck mold in this work, where neck cast = design . neck is composed of consecutive nneck voxel shells which the rst shell is connected to the castnneck ing surface, neck = { lneck }l=1 , where nneck is a function of feeder-neck dimensions (see Fig. 1). Note that the feeder-neck should be designed within neck and the growth of feeder inward neck should be suppressed during the feeder growth step. 2.5 Feeder growth After designing the feeder neck, the growth of feeder is started. The feeder growth includes two steps calling growth and redistribution steps. During feeder growth, the growth and redistribution steps are repeated contin-

Vc Ac

(3)

where t f is the total solidication time, B is a mould constant, Mc is the geometrical modulus of casting,
Fig. 1 Schematic illustration of design spaces in the present study

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uously until a stopping criterion is met for the current feeder (see Subsection 2.6). It is important to note that after each growth or redistribution step, the mould box should be resized based lmin . Prior to starting the feeder growth, one shell of the mold voxels in touch with the feeder-neck are converted to feeder voxels. Growth: In this step, the feeder is grown up in the growth domain, growth , where growth = mold \ neck (complement of neck ). The user can impose some limitations on the denition of growth . Within each cycle of growth step, the energy equation, defect prediction and defect distribution are solved and surface voxels of the current feeder are sorted based on a descending order of their local freezing time. Then, the rst item of the sorted list, V OX1 , is selected and its hottest mold neighbor voxel which is member of growth is converted to a feeder voxel (F is converted to 1). Then, the next hottest mold neighbor of V OX1 which is member of growth is converted to a feeder voxel. This procedure is continued until there is no mold neighbor voxel for V OX1 which is member of growth . Then, the second item of the sorted list is selected, V OX2 , and the same procedure is applied on it. This additive procedure is continued until the number of added voxels to the feeder (at each growth cycle) sur f ace sur f ace becomes equal to nadd = n f eeder , where n f eeder is f eeder the number of surface voxels of the current feeder (increased dynamically during growth cycles) and 0 < 1 is a user dened parameter which controls the growth rate (is 1 in our study). The local stopping criterion is studied after each growth step and when it is satised, the feeder growth is discarded, means that the design of the current feeder is completed, and the method will design the next feeder if it is required. Redistribution: The lateral growth of the feeder decreases its geometrical modulus and so its feeding capacity. To avoid this problem, after each growth step, we perform at least one redistribution step to improve the feeder topology (two redistribution steps are used in the present study). Within each redistribution step, rstly the energy equation, defect prediction and defect distribution are solved and then the surface voxels of the current feeder are sorted based on a descending order of their local freezing time. Then, the nredist voxels from the colder f eeder parts of the feeder (last items of the sorted list) are moved to the warmer parts, i.e., feeder voxels in the colder regions are converted to mold voxels and mold neighbor voxels of the warmer feeder parts are converted to feeder voxels. In the present study nredist = f eeder

n f eeder , where 0 < < 1/2 is a user dened parameter ( = 1/2 is used in the present study). Same as the growth step, the local stopping criterion is studied after each redistribution step. 2.6 Stopping criteria The volumetric growth of the feeder should be continued until some predened stopping criteria are met. In the present study we use two types of stopping criteria: global and local (both of them are user dened parameters). The global stopping criterion determined the maximum allowable amount of remained defects (void volume percent in this study) in the nal design. After complete design of each feeder, this criterion is studied, and if it is not satised a new feeder will be added to the casting. The local stopping criterion determines the maximum allowable amount of the distributed defect (D) at the connection point of each feeder-neck. This criterion is studied during feeder growth cycles, and the growth will be discarded when this criterion is satised. 2.7 Overall algorithm The overall algorithm used in the present study is summarized here. 1. Initialization: denition of cast , mold , design and control parameters. 2. N f eeder = 0 (N f eeder is the number of feeders). 3. Do the solidication analysis and defect prediction, if total defects > global defect threshold : 3.1. 3.2. N f eeder = N f eeder + 1. Do the defect distribution and nd the feederneck connection point, Pneck , (point on design with maximum value of D-eld). Design the feeder-neck. Dene growth . Convert mold voxels which are member of growth and touch the feeder-neck to feeder voxels. Do the feeder growth: 3.6.1. Growth:

sur f ace

3.3. 3.4. 3.5.

3.6.

3.6.1.1. Do the solidication analysis, defect prediction and defect distribution. If D at Pneck < local defect threshold goto 3. 3.6.1.2. Sort feeder voxels in a descending order of their local freezing time.

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3.6.1.3. Grow the feeder in the mold from its hottest surfaces in the hottest directions for nadd voxels. f eeder 3.6.2. Redistribution: do the redistribution cycle cycle nredist times (nredist 1): 3.6.2.1. Do the solidication analysis, defect prediction and defect distribution. If D at Pneck < local defect threshold goto 3. 3.6.2.2. Sort feeder voxels in a descending order of their local freezing time. 3.6.2.3. Move nredist of feeder voxels f eeder from the colder parts to the warmer parts.

Table 1 Physical properties, initial and boundary conditions used in our simulations Casting Density (kg/m3 ) Heat capacity (J/kg o C) Heat conductivity (W/mo C) Latent heat (J/kg) Initial temperature (o C) Tliq (o C) Tsol (o C) Interfacial heat transfer coefcient (W/m2o C) CastingMold MoldAir
1

Sand mold 1500 1128.6 0.7 20

7300 (solid) 6826 (liquid) 627 33.5 2.7 105 1621 1488 1439

1 418.0 75.0

= 1.0, 0.8, 0.6 for bottom, lateral and top surfaces respectively

3 Limitations As already mentioned in Section 2, feeders are designed in a descending order of size in the present study. In this way, the design of latter feeders are affected by presence of the former feeders, but the latter feeders have not any effect on the design of former feeders. Note that this strategy is the key of the presented method to select suitable feeder positions when multiple feeders with variable sizes are required. On the other hand when multiple feeders with approximately the same sizes are needed, result of the presented algorithm is not essentially optimal. In this situation, undesired feeder patterns may be formed or the number of feeders in the nal design may be higher than what is actually needed. For example, consider the feeding system design for a cylindrical ring. The rst feeder is designed on an arbitrary point of the ring surface (top or side based on ring cross section geometry, consider the symmetry of ring). In the cylindrical coordinate, (r, , z), we take (r, 0, z) as the spatial position of the feeder-neck connection point. The second feeder-neck connection point will be (r, , z). For the third and forth ones, these points will be (r, /2, z) or (r, 3 /4, z). Therefore, if the number of feeders in a real optimal solution is 2n , (n = 0, 1, 2, . . .), the presented method leads to an optimal design. In other cases it takes higher number of feeders, so its result will be sub-optimal. As an other example, consider feeder design for a horizontal plate. In this case the presented algorithm put the rst feeder at the center of the plate. Therefore, the presented method can not design feeders such that we have four feeders with a symmetric pattern. To improve such undesirable behaviors, it is possible to use a gradient-based optimization algorithm (in con-

junction with the nite difference sensitivity analysis) to optimize the number and location of feeders in the nal design. In fact, the result of the presented method can be used as an initial guess for a gradient based optimization method (e.g. see: Lewis et al. 2000, 2001). Furthermore, we do not attend to the design of parting-line in this work. Therefore, the resulted design of the presented method should be revised to include the parting-line constraint or can be used just for gravity casting processes without the parting-line, e.g., evaporating pattern casting and investment casting.

4 Result and discussion In this section an example is presented to illustrate the potential of the proposed method. For this purpose, the casting of a low alloy carbon steel in a silica sand is considered. The physical properties and initial and boundary conditions used in our analysis are presented in Table 1. Figure 2 shows the conguration of the casting which is used in this numerical experiment (longer dimension is equal to 95 cm). Note that, this test case is designed such that it needs multiple feeders with

Fig. 2 3D conguration of the test case used in the present study

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Fig. 3 Variation of feeders topology and contour plot of the local freezing time (in minute) during optimization

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Fig. 4 Contour plot of the distributed defect eld (in percent) during optimization

different sizes. The voxel size is taken equal to 7 mm and number of cast voxels in initial design are 120757. The global and the local defect thresholds are taken to be 0.1 and 0.1%. The defect-eld (before distribution)

is dened as 100 void volume fraction after complete solidication. As the computing platform, we have used a personal computer with an AMD 2.41 GHz CPU and 2GB RAM.

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Figure 3 shows the variation of feeders topology and contour plot of the local freezing time during optimization procedure. Plot shows that, during growth of each feeder, the directional solidication is gradually established and its corresponding hot spot is shifted to the feeder. Figure 4 shows the variation of the distributed defect eld during optimization procedure. The quantied variation of the distributed defect eld at the feeder-neck connection point of each feeder is shown in Fig. 5. Plot shows that the distributed defect eld is reduced (not essentially with a monotonic behavior) with the growth of feeder and the remained distributed defect (at feeder-neck connection point) after complete design of each feeder is smaller than the predened local threshold. Figure 6 shows the contour plot of the metal fraction (inverse of the macro shrinkage) after complete solidication during the optimization

procedure. This plot shows that a defect-free casting is resulted at the end of procedure. Since in steel casting process we have usually tall shrinkage-pipes, large H/D ratio (1.52.0) is required to generate a healthy casting (consider cylindrical feeder, where H and D are height and diameter of feeder respectively). Figure 7 shows a designed cylindrical feeder (with H/D = 1.5) which is required to prevent the shrinkage-pipe damage versus optimized feeder using the presented method. This plot shows that by applying the presented method, the required feeder height is decreased considerably in contrast to the conceptual design principles. The total number of casting voxels in the nal design are 217011 and the casting yield in the nal design is about 55%. The total CPU time of this numerical experiment was about 5 h. The total number of solidication analysis, defect prediction and defect distribution was 178 times.

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 70 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 130

distributed defect (percent)

5 Conclusions A new method for optimal feeder design in gravity casting processes is presented. The input of the presented method is a casting component which is placed inside a suitable environmental mould box. The method automatically determines the position of the feederneck connection point(s) on the casting surface, and then designs the feeder-neck based on the computeraided geometric reasoning, conceptual feeder-neck design principles and results of the solidication analysis. Designing the feeder-neck, feeder growth stage is started and is continued until a local stopping criterion is met. Upon completing the design of the rst feeder, if other feeders are necessary, they will be designed (in a descending order of sizes). The method can benet from the user contribution to improve the feasibility of the resulted design. The success of the proposed method was supported with an illustrative example. Enrichment of the presented method with some smart geometric reasoning modules increases the feasibility of the presented method to use in real-world applications.

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

number of solidification analysis distributed defect (percent)

80

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100

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140

number of solidification analysis distributed defect (percent)

Appendix 1: Solidication analysis

135 140 145 150 155 160 165 170 175 180

number of solidification analysis

Fig. 5 Variation of distributed defect eld at the feeder-neck connection points during optimization: rst feeder (top), second feeder (middle) and third feeder (bottom)

Assume the spatial domain is denoted by = c m , where c is a portion of which includes the casting and m denotes the mold region. The contact surface between the casting and mold is denoted by cm = c m . From a macroscopic point of view, if the

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Fig. 6 Contour plot of the metal fraction eld during optimization (the zero value represents the macro shrinkage)

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Fig. 7 Reducing length of shrinkage-pipe in steel casting process by optimization of the feeder topology: cylindrical feeder (H/D =1.5) designed based on the conceptual design principles (left) and automatically designed feeder with feeder growth method (right)

is dened on ma . Following (Manzari et al. 2000), the cast-mold interface is modeled by the interfacial heat transfer coefcient method, i.e., kc ci = km m = n ni hi (c m ) on cm [0, T], where ni is the unit normal vector directed toward the mold which is dened on cm and hi is the local heat transfer coefcient of castmold interface. The interfacial heat transfer coefcient could be determined by experiment, direct numerical simulation or combination of experiment and numerical simulation (cf. Lewis and Ransing 1998). Since equations (5) and (6) should be solved within every topology evolution iteration, efcient numerical solution of these equations is a key to develop a practical optimization tool. In (Tavakoli and Davami 2007c) a fast solidication solver has been introduced to solve conduction dominated solidication problems. Latter, authors (Tavakoli and Davami 2007a) extended the application of this solver to simulate real-world sand casting process. This solver has been used in the present study for the purpose of solidication analysis. For more details about accuracy and efciently of this method, refer to: (Tavakoli and Davami 2007a).

effect of melt ow during solidication is neglected, the solidication is governed by the heat conduction equation as follows (cf. Lewis and Ravindran 2000): fs c c cc = (c c ) + c L t t

Appendix 2: Solidication defects prediction As stated in Subsection 2.2, predicting occurrence of solidication defects is required to nd the location of the feeder-neck(s). It is also required to study the stopping criteria. There are several types of numerical models that can be employed to predict the formation defects in metals due to solidication shrinkage (for state-of-the-art reviews see: Stefanescu 2005). In the present study, the simplied shrinkage model suggested by Imafuku and Chijiiwa (1983) is applied to predict the formation of solidication defects. The main benet of the simplied shrinkage model is its high efciency besides the reasonable accuracy (for more details see: Imafuku and Chijiiwa 1983). It is worth noting that other defect prediction models could be employed instead of the reduced shrinkage model without any limitation.

in Qc =

[0, T] (5)

where c is the cast density, cc is the cast specic heat, c is the temperature eld in the cast region, t is the time variable, c is the cast thermal conductivity, L is the fusion latent heat, fs is the solid fraction eld, and [0, T] is the temporal domain. The initial condition 0 0 is c = c in c {t = 0}, where c is the pouring temperature. In the mold region we have: m cm m = (m m ) t in Qm = [0, T] (6)

where m is the mold density, cm is the mold specic heat, m is the temperature eld in the mold region and m is the mold thermal conductivity. The initial condition in the mold region is m = in m {t = 0}, where is the ambient temperature. The natural boundary condition is applied at the mold-air interface, m i.e., k nma = h ( m ) on ma [0, T], where h denotes the mold-air convective heat transfer coefcient, ma is the mold-air interface and nma is the unit normal vector directed toward the environment which

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