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Billet Casting Principles and Practice

The direct chill (DC) casting process involves pouring molten aluminum into a water-cooled mold. As the ingot is withdrawn from the mold by a hydraulic ram, water jets cool the surface and solidify the aluminum, leaving a pool of liquid metal inside. Key factors that influence the process include casting speed, water flow rate, temperature and alloy composition. The goal is to control the cooling rate precisely to prevent defects from forming during solidification. DC casting is commonly used to produce round billets and rectangular ingots for subsequent extrusion or rolling.

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Naveen Gupta
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2K views

Billet Casting Principles and Practice

The direct chill (DC) casting process involves pouring molten aluminum into a water-cooled mold. As the ingot is withdrawn from the mold by a hydraulic ram, water jets cool the surface and solidify the aluminum, leaving a pool of liquid metal inside. Key factors that influence the process include casting speed, water flow rate, temperature and alloy composition. The goal is to control the cooling rate precisely to prevent defects from forming during solidification. DC casting is commonly used to produce round billets and rectangular ingots for subsequent extrusion or rolling.

Uploaded by

Naveen Gupta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Billet Casting Principles and Practice

The extrusion process consists of four major components, hydraulicpress, die, tooling, and billet
casting. Billet quality directly controls or may affect extrusion productivity and quality. The
profitability of the extrusion is derived from the cost of the billet.
The cost of casting and the quality of the billet are two very important considerations for the
extrusion producer. But the technology is changing and improving toward higher productivity and
quality.
Casting Speed. Casting speed is one of the most important variables in the DC casting process.
The billet sizes and the kinds of alloys determine casting speeds. The typical casting speeds in a
vertical semicontinuous
casting process for a 6063 alloy are 5.1 in. (130 mm)/min for 7 in. (178mm) diameter and 3.9 in.
(100 mm)/min for 9 in. (230 mm) diameter, respectively
The corresponding casting speed generally lies between 1.0 and 2.0

mm/s. The process stops once the desired ingot length (ca. 4 10 m) has been obtained.
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Metal Head. The metal head is the distance from the bottom of the mold to the liquid metal
surface and is usually kept at a depth of at least 2 in. (51 mm)

Rate of Water Flow. During DC casting, approximately 432 btu/lb (1 MJ/kg) of heat must be
transferred from the ingot. The temperature and the rate of water flow must be adjusted so that
the water will wet the entire surface of the ingot being cast and cascade down its surface. The
water must be prevented from bouncing off the ingot surface. In summary, the overall production
performance and quality of DC cast billet are influenced by the factors that are connected with a
closed-loop chain.
The corresponding casting speed generally lies between 1.0 and 2.0 mm/s. The process stops once the desired
ingot length (ca. 4 10 m) has been obtained.
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Filtration System
There are various types of filters used in the casting process, such as metal or fiber glass screen,
rotary
Degassing, bed filters, bonded particle filters, cartridge filters, and ceramic foam filters. In
casting, filter selection will depend on ease of use, economics, space constraints, auxiliary metal
treatment capabilities,
Desired filtration efficiency, and end-product application.
Ceramic
foam filters are commonly and successfully used in the current process.

This research project studied the effects of various factors (cooling water flow rate, initial sample temperature,
casting speed, sample thermophysical properties, surface roughness, cooling water temperature) on the heat
transfer which takes place in the secondary cooling zone of the direct-chill casting process. A particular
emphasis was put on high temperature boiling water heat transfer phenomena, which take place during the
transient start-up phase of the process and have been known to influence the formation of defects.
Precise control of the boiling water heat transfer phenomena taking place in the secondary cooling zone can
help prevent the formation of defects during the transient start-up phase of the DC casting process. For instance,
butt curl can be reduced by limiting the cooling rate during process start-up, i.e. by promoting film boiling [15].
In industrial processes, this has been achieved by lowering the water flow rate [26, 36], using pulsed water [9,
16] or injecting noncondensable gases such as air or carbon dioxide in the cooling water [16, 19]. Hot tears can
be prevented by limiting the cooling rate at the ingot surface, so that the difference between the cooling rates at
the surface and in the center of the ingot is minimized [201. This is achieved, for instance, with the so-called
delayed quench method, which uses two series of water jets for the secondary cooling: a first series with a
relatively low water flow rate just at the mould exit, and a second series ofjets with a much higher water flow
rate positioned approximately at the same. level as the bottom of the liquid metal sump.

A water temperature above 40°C was found to promote bubbleformation


Typical cooling water flow rates in the DC casting process are 50 L/minm during the start-up and 150 200 L!
-

minm in steady-state.
Casting speed depends on parameters such as ingot size and alloy types, but is normally between 1–3 mm/�. The cooling rate falls
from 20 ℃/� close to the ingot surface to 0.5 ℃/� towards the centre of the ingot. The temperature of aluminium when poured is
approximately 690–725℃ and the thermal gradient is 0.3 to 5 (°C/mm). This method of casting is mainly used to produce round
billets and rectangular ingots (slabs), which in turn are extruded into different profile shapes (rods, bars) and rolled to form plates
and sheets respectively

Grain refinement to control nucleation and the growth of grains is common. It involves feeding rods of titanium boride to the melt in
the launder shortly before casting begins. These rods dissolve quickly. The rod addition method facilitates good control of
composition but is more costly than methods using other forms of master alloy elements, such as briquettes

The factors determining Al melt cleanliness and thus quality are the number of inclusions, alkali elements (calcium and sodium), gas
contents (dissolved hydrogen) and trace metal impurities existing in the melt [

 Direct Chill (DC) casting in Electromagnetic mold


Direct Chill (DC) casting process
Solidification of the Direct Chill cast metal starts in the water-cooled mold. The melt flows into the mold
cavity through a trough and a vertical downspout (nozzle).
The melt flow is controlled by a floating valve increasing the outlet opening of the spout when the melt
level goes down or decreasing it when the melt level goes up.
The mold made of aluminum or copper alloys has holes arranged along its bottom end.
Water jets flowing from the holes onto the surface of the emerging ingot provide its direct chilling and
solidification.
Most of heat (about 80%) is extracted by the secondary cooling (Direct Chill) and only 20% is removed by
heat transfer through the mold wall.
The mold forms a solid shell of the ingot containing a pool of liquid metal. It solidifies and cools down in
the zone of the secondary cooling.
The liquid metal pool depth is about 8-20” (200-500 mm).
The mold of the Direct Chill (DC) casting process are usually very short: 3-6” (75-150 mm). The casting
rate is normally 2-6 inch/min (50-150 mm/min).
Prior to the casting process a dummy block is inserted into the bottom part of the mold The Direct Chill
(DC)casting process starts when the mold cavity with the inserted dummy block is filled with the melt to a
predetermined level. Then the dummy block driven by a hydraulic cylinder starts to lower withdrawing the
cast ingot from the mold.
The casting process ends when the hydraulic ram reaches its bottom position.

The dimensions of the Direct Chill (DC) castings:


 Billets - 2-20” (50-500 mm)diameter and 160-320” (4-8 m) length. The most typical billet
diameter is 8” (200 mm).
 Rectangular ingots - up to 60”x20” (1500×500 mm) and up to 400” (10 m) length.

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