Shrinkage simulation analysis on Lifter cooler big at high temperature pouring liquid metal

Any defect in casting products should be avoided at all cost, and treatment must be done as early as possible. One alternative to produce a sound-casting product is using simulation application such as SOLIDCast to analyze a defect, which this research used to analyze the shrinkage defect in Lifter Cooler Big made from SCH 11 material. This research was conducted at the Foundry Laboratory, Bandung Polytechnic of Manufacturing and aimed to investigate the main causal of shrinkage in Lifter Cooler Big. The first step of the research was to analyze the shrinkage defect on three Lifter Cooler Big products. It was followed by the visual inspection test, Liquid Penetrant Testing (LPT), and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) test to verify the defect. Next was to calibrate the SOLIDCast simulation application to obtain material and sand parameters matching the real products condition. Using material density analysis from SOLIDCast simulation, a defect prediction was obtained similarly to the shrinkage on the samples. The result stated that the sand condition was in 1.5 W/m·K thermal conductivity and 1075 J/g·K specific heat capacity at 1570 °C pouring temperature. The modulus and critical fraction solid time showed that the shrinkage occurred due to the progressive solidification and other factors such as sand condition, final freezing location, modulus value, and pouring temperature. Additionally, there was a correlation between material density analysis and gas defect in the products).