Finite element analysis of filling stage in die-casting process using marker surface method and adaptive grid refinement technique

Abstract

The marker surface method and the adaptive grid refinement technique have been applied to the three-dimensional (3-D) finite element analysis of the filling stage in the die-casting process. Especially, the marker surface plugging technique and the marker surface regeneration technique incorporated in the marker surface method have been proposed for the efficient analysis of 3-D practical problems. Through the marker surface plugging technique, new parts of marker surface are effectively created in order to eliminate the gaps between the parts of marker surface or between the edge of marker surface and cavity wall. By using the marker surface regeneration technique, the marker surface including a great number of marker elements is recreated on the basis of its original shape in order to decrease the number of marker elements and computational time. A 3-D example used as the benchmark test and a typical industrial problem of the die-casting process have been analysed. The numerical results have been in good agreement with the experimental results and the efficiency of the adaptive grid refinement technique has been verified. It has been shown that the proposed techniques incorporated in the marker surface method and the adaptive grid refinement technique can be effectively applied to general industrial problems. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.