Workshop 8
Phase Change
15.0 Release
ANSYS Mechanical Heat Transfer
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SOLIDIFCATION OF A FLYWEEEL CASTING
Example: solidification of an aluminum flywheel casting contained in a sand mold
• A 2D axisymmetric model is used to represent the 3D one shown below on left
Mold
Wheel
3D Wheel Model with 2D Axisymmetric Model with
Cutaway Sand Mold
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Description
• The molten aluminum is introduced into the mold at 800° C
• The ambient temperature and the mold are initially at 30° C
• The top and side faces of the mold exchange heat with the environment by
free convection
• Axisymmetric behavior is assumed for sand mold and aluminum casting
• Thermal material properties are assumed constant for the sand, but vary with
temperature for the aluminum
• Specific heat and density will be replaced by enthalpy for the aluminum
• The end time for the analysis will be 25 minutes (1500 seconds)
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Model Setup
1. Restore archive WheelMold.wbpz (this has the 2D
Geometry)
2. Add a Transient Thermal Analysis system to the project.
3. Change Project Units to Metric (kg-m-C)
4. Drag the geometry component on to the Transient Thermal
System
5. Double click on the “Model” cell top open
ANSYS/Mehancial
6. Highlight the Geometry branch and set “Axisymmetric” as
the 2D behavior
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Model Setup
7. Open Engineering Data and Create two materials, Aluminum and Sand
8. Prescribe Material Properties for Sand as follows
Thermal conductivity : 0.346 W/m-°C
Density : 1520 kg/m3
Specific Heat : 816 J/kg-°C
9. Prescribe for Aluminum as follows:
Thermal Conductivity as function of T
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Model Setup
10. Prescribe Constant Material Properties for Aluminum
Density : 2689 kg/m3
Specific Heat : 951 J/kg-°C
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Enthalpy Curve
10. Calculate enthalpy curve. The enthalpy data for aluminum is not given however we can
use the properties below to calculate enthalpy:
Choose TS = 695° C and TL = 697° C (giving a 2 degree transition zone between liquid and solid phases)
Property Value
Melting Point 696 C
Density 2707 kg/m3
Cs, Solid Specific Heat 896 J/kg-C
Cl,Liquid Specific Heat 1050 J/kg-C
L, Latent Heat 395440 J/kg
(or from L x Density) 1.0704e9 J/m3
Temp (C) Enthalpy (J/m3) Value Equation Number (L7 Slide 28)
0 0 H0 -
695 1.6857E9 HS 4
697 2.7614E9 HL 6
1000 3.6226E9 H+ 7
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Enthalpy Curve
11. Select the enthalpy property from the toolbox and add it
to Aluminum
12. Prescribe the Enthalpy vs. T curve from the previous slide
into the table.
13. Return to the Mechancial application,
RMB on the Model Tree and select
“Refresh Materials”
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. . . Phase Change
14. Set up two load steps, loads and the initial
condition for the simulation, using the following
assumptions:
– The initial step (0.1 s) is used to establish the initial
temperature for the liquid aluminum (800 C)
– The second step (1500 s) represents the transient
cooling/solidification of the aluminum
– The “Initial Temperature” branch accounts for the mold’s
initial 30 C
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. . . Phase Change
15. Apply the 800C temperature load as a table.
16. Deactivate the temperature for load step 2. Note the load
must be deactivated not simply set to zero
17. Apply convection loads as shown below
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… Phase Change
18. Set the Nonlinear Solution Formulation
under Analysis Settings is configured to
“Full” (i.e. Full Newton-Raphson)
19. Verify that Line Search is set to “On” for
the second load step
20. Issue a “Solve”
21. (OPTIONAL) Use a command object to
change θ from the default of 1.0
(Backward Euler) to 0.5 (recommended for
phase change).
This change will reduce the number of
iterations by a factor of two.
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. . . Phase Change
22. When the solution is
complete a plot flywheel
temperatures (max and
min) vs time.
23. Results show temperatures
leveling off in the material’s
phase transition region
(695-697 C) during the
solidification process
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. . . Phase Change
24. Use contour plots with customized levels to show the progress of
solidification (red = liquid; green = transition; blue = solid)
T = 90 s
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