Title: Energy conservation in aluminium foundries by waste heat recovery from solidifying molten metal

Authors: J. Selvaraj; K.I. Ramachandran

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore 641 112, Tamil Nadu, India. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore 641 112, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: This paper presents a unique attempt to preheat the raw materials by recovering the waste heat from solidifying molten metal in shape castings of aluminium using sand moulds. Finite element analysis of the problem using ANSYS has also been done, results of which show satisfactory agreement with the experimental results. By using this preheating method, it is proved that around 16% of heat recovery could be realised, which is a substantial achievement in this field. Since energy generation has negative environmental impacts, this attempt is a definite contribution to the solution of global environmental problems such as climate change. Patent has been applied for this work and hence minimum details have been provided.

Keywords: sand casting; waste heat recovery; preheating; finite element analysis; FEA; simulation; global climate change; patents; energy technology; energy conservation; aluminium foundries; solidification; molten metal.

DOI: 10.1504/IJETP.2012.046018

International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy, 2012 Vol.8 No.1, pp.32 - 49

Received: 01 Jul 2011
Accepted: 17 Dec 2011
Published online: 27 Aug 2014 *

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