• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.311-321
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• 2001

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.184-193
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• 1995

Effects of process parameters during thixocasting, such as solid volume fraction, mold temperature and extrusion ratio, on the mold filling behaviour and fluidity of Mg alloy(AZ91D) have been investigated. The semi-solid ingot held for 60 minutes at the semi-solid temperature range did not contain the equilibrium volume fraction of solid as expected from the phase diagram. Therefore, in order to obtain the desired solid fractions, and to suppress the exaggerated grain growth during heating, it was required to heat the ingot rapidly up to the temperature $10^{\circ}C$ higher than the semi-solid temperature suggested from the phase diagram for a specific volume fraction of solid. The experimental results show that mold filling behaviour and fluidity can be improved with the use of the higher mold temperature and the lower volume fraction of solid, but remain nearly unaffected by the change of extrusion ratio.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.227-230
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• 2005

Many rheocasting processes had been proposed because of the difficulty of recycling, the limit of material, and the high cost of raw material in thixocasting. But, these rheocasting processes also had disadvantages such as the high initial Investment cost and the lower mechanical properties than thixocasting. In this study, a continuous fabrication of rheological material with pressure rotation equipment was newly devised to overcome the disadvantages of rheocasting process. In order to investigate the thixoformability, reheating experiments were carried out with the material fabricated by the newly devised equipment. Morphological characteristics between mechanical stirring and reheating were compared.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.254-258
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• 2005

Semisolid process is possible in any material system possessing a freezing range where the microstructure should consist of the nondendritic globular solid phase separated and enclosed by the liquid phase, referred to as semisolid slurry. There are two primary semisolid processing routes, thixocasting and rheocasting. Especially, rheocasting process has become a new focus in the field of semisolid process because of its many advantages such as no special billet required and possibility of in-house scrap recycling, compared with the thixocasting process. In-Ladle direct thermal control (DTC) rheocasting has been developed, based on the fact that there is slurry and mush transition in every molten metal and the transition, which normally occurs in the range of liquid traction of 0.1 to 0.6, could be controlled by controlling solid shape and relative solid-liquid interfacial energy. In this study, A356 Al alloy was investigated to verify In-Ladle DTC rheocasting for obtaining semisolid slurry. Modeling of heat transfer was carried out to investigate the effect of pouring temperature and ladle material, geometry and temperature and the simulation results were compared with the actual experiments.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.185-190
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• 2000

Die design by computer simulation has some advantages compared with the conventional method which has performed by designer's experiences and trials and errors. The die filling and solidification process of thixoforming process were simulated by MAGMAsoft/thixo module. First of all, thixoforming die design was applied to previously geometry shape. The value of pressure distribution shows high and uniform as the gate diameter is 18mm. Designed gating system considering the deformation of die and product was suggested by the filling simulation. Gate velocity(7.25m/s) of designed gating system shows that propriety to semi-solid metal working process and CAE results were in good agreement with experimental results.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.9-12
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• 2008

Recently, industries and academic institutes have been interested in the rheology forming technology for light weight materials. However, this rheocasting process has advantages such as the high initial investment cost and the lower mechanical properties than thixocasting. In this study, the continuous fabrication of rheological material with a spiral stirring equipment(mechanical stirring system) was newly devised to overcome the disadvantages of rheocasting process. The experimental parameters were stirring time($0{\sim}1200sec$), stirring velocity ($0{\sim}100rpm$) and stirring temperature($650{\sim}680^{\circ}C$). The optimal conditions for fabricated rheological material of A6061 alloy were stirring time at 300sec, stirring velocity at 60rpm and stirring temperature at $650^{\circ}C$. At these results, the equivalent diameter was $45{\sim}65{\mu}m$, mean roundness was $1.4{\sim}1.6$ and Vickers hardness was 60Hv.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.1765-1772
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• 2006

High-pressure die casting such as thixocasting and rheocasting is an effective process in the manufacturing automotive parts. Following the recent trend in the automotive manufacturing technologies, the product design subject to the die casting becomes more and more complex. Simultaneously the injection speed is also designed to be very high to establish a short cycletime. Thus, the requirement of the die design becomes more demanding than ever before. In some cases the product's shape can have multiple slender manifolds. In such cases, design of the inlet and outlet parts of the die is very important in the whole manufacturing process. The main issues required for the qualified products are to attain gentle and uniform flow of the molten liquid within the passages of the die. To satisfy such issues, the inlet cylinder ('bed cylinder' in this paper) must be as large as possible and simultaneously the outlet opening at the end of each passage must be as small as possible. However these in turn obviously bring additional manufacturing costs caused by re-melting of the bed cylinder and increased power due to the small outlet-openings. The purpose of this paper is to develop effective simulation methods of calculation for fluid flows in multiple columns, which mimic the actual complex design, and to get some useful information which can give some contributions to the die-casting industry. We have used a commercial code CFX in the numerical simulation. The primary parameter involved is the size of the bed cylinder. We will show how the very small opening of the outlet can be treated with the aid of the porous model provided in the code. To check the validity of the numerical results we have also conducted a simple experiment by using water.