Rautomead's innovative advanced computer modelling of casting parameters

Equipment suppliers must continually innovate, evolve, and develop their technology to provide manufacturers with new capabilities and improvements to reduce costs, improve quality and expand their product range.

Rautomead has always maintained an active R&D department at the Head Office in Dundee, with both horizontal and upward vertical continuous casting equipment available for experimental trials and also sample manufacture for clients who wish to test and evaluate material quality before committing to investment in a new machine.

These R&D casting machines are also invaluable for conducting “in house” tests when evaluating new tooling materials, new control and drive technologies and also for making experimental trial casts in new alloys.

Recent successful R&D projects include:
- CuCrZr rod casting at small diameter (12-14mm) for manufacture of high strength pins and drawn wire.
- Casting of copper manganese nickel alloys for manufacture of resistance wires
- Casting of small diameter (4mm) silver zinc wire for manufacture of solder
- High speed (20m/min) casting of lead alloy wire

Current R&D projects include developing the tooling and technology for the manufacture of copper iron alloys.

Hot metal test casting is an expensive process, especially when experimenting with new alloys and materials for the first time. In a move to minimise these costs, working closely with the University of Dundee, Rautomead have developed a modelling and simulation programme to mimic production of continuous cast rod and to predict changes in the solidification pattern of the rod caused by adjustments in operating parameters (withdrawal pulse sequence, metal and water temperatures etc).

The predictions proved accurate when compared with hot metal casting of 8.0mm CuOF using the same parameters. These results provide confidence that computer modelling may be used in place of physical casting tests in the initial stages of development.

Computer modelling is now being applied to casting of more complex alloys.

In future it is anticipated that by using Computer Modelling software to identify and predict optimum casting parameters in a virtual world, we will be able to reduce the time and cost of hot metal trials when developing new alloys and casting techniques.