Properties of exothermic sleeves for risers

[gieter]

Hi all,

For some time I've been looking for the properties of EXO/ISO sleeves to use in casting simulation. I'm looking for curves of generated power per volume or mass versus time.

I've done extensive searches on the internet and the only thing I could find was "Problems of Heat Source Modeling in Iso-exothermic Materials Used as Riser sleeves in Foundry" by Z. Ignaszak and P. Popielarski but when I use the data, I obtein unrealistic results.

The suppliers are not willing to give these data. Foseco, being the biggest supplier, even has an exclusivity agreement with Magmasoft on these data. They are only available if you have a Magmasoft license and pay an extra fee for the riser database.

How are others using other software than Magmasoft coping with this problem? Does there exist a reliable test method that can be done by a foundry?

Thanks for any help,

 

[arunmrao]

I have no experience using any software for riser size determination or location. I am guided by first principles in calculating the size and numbers.

You can test your results and perhaps workback on your assumptions by pouring simple cube castings with different sizes of risers,sectioning the casting,risers to know the effectiveness of feeding. Normally Foseco claims a mef of 1.6-1.8 for their exothermic sleeves. I have a publication by Ruddle,on Risering for steel castings during his stint with Foseco on US.I can share this with you if you need it.

Not surprising of Foseco engineer not being able to assist you for quite often they may not be aware of the details.(This is my personal experience.)

Have you used now exothermic sleeves of Foseco with breaker cores? You can pour a low carbon steel casting.yet knock off the riser easily. No need to gas cut!!

" All that is necessary for triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".
Edmund Burke

 

[gieter]

Arunmrao,

Thanks for your fast response. We also use manual calculation as the basis of our methode design (modulus, feeding distance). But we back this up with computer simulations. These are used both as check of the manual calculations and as a test bench for new methoding concepts.

Up to now we used a locally developed simulation software based on a sort of black-box principle. We did not have any access to material parameters. For this and other reasons we changed to the Flow3D/Conifercast combination. This gives us more flexibility on the physics behind the simulation, but the back-draft is that it requires much more parameter imput. To my experience it is very difficult to obtein these data from external sources (suppliers, software developers, University's, internet,...).

We did trials and are still conducting some. But even with simple geometry, like a cube as you suggest, it is difficult to interpret the results as you have to tweak multiple parameters. There is software around to "reverse engineer" parameters from trials, but as far as I know they are too expensive for foundry's and require a lot of knowledge on Physics.

The Ruddle publication is already in my posession and we use breaker cores where possible, but thanks for the suggestion.