MAGMAsoft

When designing casting technology, to examine the whole proccess step by step, a numerical modelling of the casting process is used. This is done through the use of programs that by their very nature should reflect or simulate the phenomena that are actually taking place during mould filling, and casting cooling and solidification, revealing also other problems that may occur in a given technology.

MAGMAsoft® is just this type of program. Because of differences in casting processes, the program offers various modules with packages that cover each foundry process. Foundry Research Institute uses the following modules:

• MAGMAStandart®;
• MAGMAIron®;
• MAGMAShell®
• MAGMAStress®;
• MAGMALink®;
• MAGMAforntier®;

MAGMAStandart ® is a base module in which the main stages of casting manufacture, i.e. mould filling and solidification, are performed. The mould filling process is simulated on a MAGMAfill ® software, and the following information is obtained:

• temperature distribution in mould and casting when the mould is filled with molten metal;
• metal flow rate distribution in a chosen part of mould cavity;
• metal flow direction in a chosen part of mould cavity;

• optimum designing of the gating system;
• optimum mould filling time calculated in function of the gating system design, mould filling rate and/or pressure, depending on the ladle height;
• determination of areas where, due to high metal flow rate, mould penetration or erosion may occur;
• adjustment of mould filling sequence to the resulting conditions of metal feeding and solidification;
• • investigation of disturbances in molten metal flow responsible for the presence of slag or gas inclusions.

• simulation of casting/mould system solidification;
• simulation of the feeding process allowing for metal flow to hot spots;
• determination of any point in the space and any solidification time, temperature gradient and cooling rate;
• determination of the critical casting areas;
• determination of thermal loads acting on mould and cores;
• plotting of the cooling curves for any chosen part of mould and casting.

• reduced number and size of risers and auxiliary elements, and their optimum layout;
• determination of optimum time for casting knocking out from mould;
• optimum chills layout.

Repeated operation of gravity casting into metal moulds is assisted by the MAGMAbatch® software which enables:

• determination of temperature distribution within the entire casting/mould system at the instant of the casting being removed from mould and at the beginning of each new cycle;
• determination of the metal mould life;
• determination of the number of cycles necessary to obtain a quasi-steady thermal mould equilibrium state.

The MAGMAIron® module is responsible for the cast iron solidification process kinetics examined in micro-scale, allowing for all the phenomena typically encountered during manufacture of iron castings, including segregation, phase transformation and/or expansion resulting from the effect of graphite precipitation in cast iron.

• alloy composition;
• inoculation and/or spherodisation treatment;
• effect of the main alloying elements on the solidification process;
• effect of silicon content on the segregation-related phenomena;
• phase transformations in solid state.

• grains number in casting structure;
• pearlite and ferrite content in the structure;
• Brinell hardness HB, tensile strength and elongation;
• macroshrinkage of nodular graphite cast iron;
• content of liquid phases at different stages of solidification;
• location of hot spots and casting areas solidifying as the last ones;
• porosity formation.

The MAGMAStress® module is a simulation software program for calculation of thermo-elastic/thermo-plastic stresses and residual stresses and strains in real 3D components. The program determines the stress distribution and related strains and displacements during the solidification of castings.

• determination of stress distribution in parts of casting and mould, calculated in different directions through the entire time of casting solidification;
• calculation of reduced stresses through the entire time of casting solidification;
• visual representation of casting distortion at any arbitrarily chosen time instant with the corresponding stress and/or temperature distribution;
• determination of stress distribution in function of time for any chosen part of casting and mould;
• determination of stress distribution in casting after machining.

• minimising and optimising of own stresses;
• determination of optimum time for casting to be taken out from mould, reducing to minimum the risk of distortion and the level of own stresses;
• changing casting geometry and/or technology to reduce own stresses;
• prolonging the metal mould life owing to the stresses reduced during repeated operation.

Further analysis of the effect of own stresses on performance conditions consists in calculation of loads resulting from the casting operation, and this is executed on an ABAQUS program. The field of own stresses in casting is transferred to ABAQUS by MAGMALink® module. It also allows for casting discontinuities in the form of porosity and for analysis of their effect on stress formation - all these operations are performed on an ABAQUS program.

MAGMAShell® module is assigned for simulation of the shell mould pouring process, allowing also for the mould heat radiation effect.

MAGMAfrontier® is a new approach to the casting process analysis. It is the first step in the use of genetic algorithms, which means the successively performed analysis of the obtained results and “learning” from these results, quickly reaching in this way the best solution. The program enables several objects to be analysed simultaneously. All we need to do is to introduce the boundary conditions and determine final objective of the conducted analysis. In this way it is possible to effectively eliminate the strenuous operation of step by step calculations according to a trial-and-error technique. MAGMAfrontier has its own capability of analysing the results and introducing the necessary corrections.

• optimum shape and size of the gating system;
• optimum shape and size of the feeding system;
• optimum composition of e.g. ductile iron to correspond to the preset final casting parameters;
• own stresses reduced to minimum through changes in casting configuration or best calculated time of casting removal from mould.