Numerical investigations of quenching cooling processes for different cast aluminum parts

Abstract

This paper discusses a recently improved computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology for virtual experimental investigation of the heat treatment for cast aluminium parts. The immersion quenching process of the heated work piece in a sub-cooled liquid pool is handled by employing the Eulerian multi-fluid modeling approach, which is implemented within the commercial CFD code AVL FIRE®. The applied heat and mass transfer rate is modeled based on a different boiling regime, which is controlled by the Leidenfrost temperature. The objective of the presented research is to present an updated quenching model by applying variable Leidenfrost temperatures. Furthermore, simulation results are compared with available measurements for a wide variety of quenching scenarios involving immersion cooling of the step plate and real cylinder head with different solid parts' orientations. The temperature histories predicted by the presented model fit very well with the available experimental data at different monitoring locations.