Modelling of Ceramic Particle Motion during Semi-Solid Forming of Aluminium Matrix Composites via CFD-DEM Four-Way Coupling

Abstract

Today, aluminium matrix composites (AMC) are widely used for the manufacturing of lightweight, yet highly stressed components in automotive, aeronautic and electrical engineering. In order to achieve particle distributions as homogeneous as possible within these component’s volumes and thus ensure optimum component properties, efforts are being made to simulate the manufacturing process prior to production. In this paper, AMC with extremely high particle fractions of more than 25 vol.% are considered in particular, as their processing still poses significant technological challenges. To model the particle motion in a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of the semi-solid forming process of this type of materials, a Lagrangian multiphase approach combining CFD and discrete element method (DEM) was used. Here, the DEM allowed all particle-particle interactions to be considered. Thus, different parameters influencing particle agglomeration, particle distribution as well as particle interaction with the cavity can be investigated during a numerical study. More specifically, the influence particle parameters such as cohesion forces and the influence of the forming speed onto the particle distribution in the final component ́s volume was analysed. The simulations were performed for a symmetric disc geometry. A forming tool was already available for this geometry, with which components could be manufactured to validate the simulation results. In the end, the study shows that by using four-way CFD-DEM coupling, simulation predictability for the semi-solid forming process of AMC could be significantly improved.