On the numerical modeling of the thermomechanical contact for metal casting analysis

The paper shows the intrinsic difficulties found in the numerical simulation of industrial casting processes using finite element (FE) analysis. Up until now, uncoupled pure thermal simulations have been mostly considered to model solidification and cooling phenomena. However a fully coupled thermomechanical analysis provides a more complete insight of the casting process and the final outcome regarding the quality of the part. In this type of analysis, the thermomechanical model used plays a role of paramount importance, as the problem is coupled both ways through contact between part and mould. The paper presents the full statement of the problem regarding contact, and it considers the difficulties associated with FE mesh generation and time integration strategy. It also reviews soft and hard algorithms for mechanical contact presenting some new alternatives. Evaluation of coefficients used for thermal contact is also discussed, and a new proposal is presented. Finally, some numerical applications are presented to assess the performance of the proposed strategies both in benchmark and industrial problems.