Date of Award

2009

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Engineering Science

Program

Mechanical and Materials Engineering

Supervisor

A.G. Straatman

Second Advisor

J.T. Wood

Abstract

In this work, the author presents a platform for the modeling of mold filling and solidification of binary alloys with properties similar to Mg alloys. A volume-of-fluid (VOF) based method to capture the interface between solid and liquid in a solidification process on a fixed 2D non-uniform grid, developed for implementation in a co-located finite volume framework, is presented. Contrary to other works, to update the volume fraction of fluid in the field, a link between source-based type of energy equation and VOF algorithm is described and implemented. A new approximation to the pressure gradient is presented to remove all “Spurious Currents” [1] resulting from pressure jumps in the vicinity of the interface.

Based upon the work presented, it is summarized that the present combination of the equations are not only computationally simple to implement and upgrade to a 3D problem, but also provides an excellent platform to capture the interface between constituents in a die-casting process including solidification and mold filling process. This will lead to a better understanding of the die-casting process.

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