Using Computational Models to Account for
Thermocouple Conduction Error in Cast Metal/Mold Interfacial Heat Transfer
Experiments
Jonathan W. Woolley and Keith A. Woodbury
American Foundry Society Transactions, Volume 117, 2009
Presented at the 113th Metalcasting Congress in Las Vegas, Nevada on April 8, 2009
ABSTRACT
The metal/mold interfacial heat transfer of
solidifying castings is a subject that has been investigated by many
researchers.The most common
experimental approach to this problem, very generally, is to measure the temperature
near the interface with thermocouples and then use an inverse method to obtain
the interfacial heat transfer coefficient.However, the presence of the thermocouple tends to result in a
disturbance of the temperature field near the location where the measurement
occurs.This yields bias error in the
temperature measurements which are rarely considered in metal/mold interfacial
heat transfer studies.In this paper,
3-D computational thermocouple models are used in conjunction with a method for
generating correction kernel functions.These kernel functions are used in a form of Duhamel’s superposition
integral to account for the bias when estimating surface heat fluxes.This correction method is applied to
temperature data obtained from horizontal aluminum plate sand casting experiments.The correction scheme results in an increase
in the heat flux estimates of up to 65%.
