Analysis of Interfacial Heat Transfer Coefficient of Green Sand Mold Casting for Aluminum and Tin-Lead Alloys by Using a Lump Capacitance Method

During the casting process of green sand mold, air gaps will form between the metal and sand mold. The air gaps will make it difficult to analyze the heat transfer at the mold/metal interface. Generally, an interfacial heat transfer coefficient is employed to evaluate the heat flux transferred across the air gaps. Though the interfacial heat transfer coefficient is highly important, its value is not easily obtained by using the direct experimental or theoretical method. With temperature-measured data, some inverse methods can be used to predict the coefficient. However, the latent heat released and undercooling during the solidification of the molten metal and the moisture of the green sand mold complicate the associated temperature calculations. To overcome this difficulty, a lump capacitance method is proposed in this study to calculate the interfacial heat transfer coefficient for the casting process in green sand mold. Thermalcouples are utilized to measure the temperatures of sand mold and metal. The geometry of casting is cylindrical and the castings are A356 alloy and Sn-20 wt. % Pb alloy. With the predicted interfacial coefficients, the temperature field of the metal was solved numerically. Based on the solidification time, the numerical results are in good agreement with the experimental ones. This verified the feasibility of the proposed method and it can be applied in the future study or design of a casting process.