Inserting ATAS MetStar data into NovaFlow&Solid

Thomas Dudley Ltd is a family owned and managed company that has been proudly manufacturing in the UK since 1920. Dedicated to quality, innovation and reliability, Thomas Dudley is a multi award-winning company.

Thomas Dudley provides a complete solutions for iron castings up to 120kg in weight. Backed by the successful Thomas Dudley Group, TD foundry is able to call upon unrivalled expertise in the design, development and manufacture of castings. The company provides the complete, end-to-end solution for high-quality grey iron castings and ductile iron castings.

When receiving an order for ductile casting, Thomas Dudley Foundry create the method according to the simulation (numerical calculation) results. The result show no shrinkage risk for default material database.

Note that default NovaFlow&Solid material database corresponds to good metallurgical quality in the production process.

In NovaFlow&Solid, we can test and verify various process and material parameters. In this case, TD decided to use real molten iron metallurgical behavior (ATAS MetStar) and combine it with NovaFlow&Solid material database in order to improve shrinkage prediction in the casting.

Thomas Dudley has successfully using an ATAS MetStar system to control metallurgical quality for many years.

From the first and second production run, ATAS MetStar data was imported to NovaFlow&Solid, at the same time as Chemex sleeve data was added.

Result shows shrinkages very close to reality. In this case there is a high shrinkage probability, in the center of shrinkage of above 10% for the first production run and 5% for the second production run.

Before the third production run, an improvement to the metallurgical quality was made to ensure eutectic chemistry within the significant (highest) modulus of the casting.

From the third production run ATAS MetStar data was imported to NovaFlow&Solid, at the same time Chemex sleeve data was added as before. The result in the third run shows no risk for shrinkage.

We can conclude that using real exothermic datasets from Chemex and data from ATAS MetStar for each run makes it closer to reality.

Reality shows that different metallurgical quality makes the castings better or worse and it is possible to use this in NovaFlow&Solid.

Note that default NovaFlow&Solid material database corresponds to good metallurgical quality in the production process. It is important to keep production processes under control.

If production processes are variable, we may need to think about using worse case for simulation.

NovaCast is constantly improving all product ranges, therefore we are working on ATAS MetStar & NovaFlow&Solid symbiose even further. As for now we recommend that you stay tuned and keep an eye on NovaCast newsletter or visit our webpage regularly to be updated with the latest news and/or improvements.

Selecting chemistry based on the significant thermal modulus within the casting, improving metallurgical quality and variability will result in consistent simulation results, reduced fall out rate and ultimately reduced energy consumed.