Structural analysis considering shrinkage defect of cast part

Abstract

Flow and solidification of fusion metal at high temperature may introduce defects in cast components. As a results, many components have unsound internal areas. However, most engineers do not consider the effect of shrinkage defects when designing components; it is generally assumed that the material is completely sound. The material property reduction method is one approach to taking into account the effect of unsound areas, but it cannot consider stress concentration effects around the shrinkage. To compensate for this limitation, a shape simplification method is proposed. The method reconstructs shrinkage defects as hollow spheroid primitives based on shrinkage shape data obtained from industrial computerised tomography. The shape simplification method offers a smaller number of elements than other methods for modelling of shrinkages, and is also able to calculate the stress concentration. The present study examines the effect of shrinkage on a component structure subject to practical loads. It is possible to improve the productivity and reliability of cast products by such considerations.