There are developed high nitrogen steels: stainless, structure, heat resistant of mechanical and operational properties exceeding up to 200% those of the nitrogen free analogues.
Technologies and installations are developed, including laboratory and semi-industrial, for investigation and production of high nitrogen steels and alloys.
Applied developments – MAGMASOFT program package
MAGMASOFT is a modern and powerful program package for simulation and optimization of casting technologies.
The Institute of Metal Science is exclusive and official distributor of the MAGMASOFT program packages for Bulgaria. It is authorized both to sell licenses for using the programs and to conclude contracts for rendering technological assistance and realization of concrete projects with carrying out simulations and optimizations of concrete casting technologies.
The penetration of the computer software in the world casting practice is long ago not an extravagant decoration for efficient presentation of the products but has become an integral part of the research and R&D activities, related to exactness and optimization of the casting technologies, development of castings of high exploitation qualities, lower metal consumption, energy savings, sharp decrease of the time for the design-realization cycle, fast and accurate, qualitative and quantitative diagnostics of wide range of eventual defects.
One of the most used software packages for such purposes is known under the name MAGMASOFT. It is developed by MAGMA GmbH company with head quarters in Aachen, Germany. The package is being developed and extended continuously by the company employees. There are extended and improved both the mathematical models, covering wider and wider circle of phenomena and processes, and the data base, which allows treatment of wider and wide circle of materials and alloys as well as the casting methods. Thus the package successfully competes with the most famous and powerful programs in the branch, such as Abbacus, РгoCast, AnyCasting, NOVACAST, 3D-FLOW, etc.
Main capabilities of the program package
MAGMASOFT is a wide-range program product for computer simulation of the physical processes during casting formation and permits treatment of almost all used in the modern practice casting methods. Object of simulation and analysis are the following processes:
Filling of the gating system and mold by melt under conditions maximum close to the real.
MAGMAsoft offers special tool called “Tracer”, which visualizes the trajectories of the fluid individual particles, when the flow characteristics are clearly delineated, turbulences emerge and the risky spots of eventual defects during filling are traced out.
Formation of porosity and shrinkages in the casting.
Thermal and concentration convection in the melt as well as diffusion of the melt components in liquid and solid states. On this base MAGMAsoft predicts the macro-segregation in the casting and distribution of the individual components concentration.
On the base of specialized criterial functions the casting structure is predicted in each of its local areas.
The product geometric modeler possesses a large specter of various geometric figures and wide range of operations over them such as translations, rotations, scaling, etc., which permit quick and precise building of objects and systems of most sophisticated geometry. At the same time visualization of the system of bodies is performed simultaneously in three different orthogonal projections and in perspective.
The program calculates the stresses, strains and shifts of the casting and mold during crystallization localizing the high risk zones for hot or cold cracks.
Special “Erosion Criteria” traces the fracture risk of the mold working surface during filling.
Feeding effectiveness. Criterion which shows what part of the molten metal, necessary to compensate the volume shrinkage, succeeds to arrive through the dendrite network to the crystallization front.
MAGMAiron is module of MAGMAsoft for MICROSTRUCTURE modeling by simulation of the crystallization and TRANSFORMATIONS IN SOLID STATE of cast irons and phenomena accompanying them. The crystallization simulation is realized at modern level for different types of cast irons. The module is specialized for treatment of eutectic gray cast iron with platelet shape of the graphite, eutectic spheroidal-graphite cast iron and eutectic white cast iron. The latest modern methods are used for the kinetics of the phase growth and accompanying it phenomena during cast iron crystallization. The module makes use of the laws under which the crystallization goes to calculate the formation of the microstructure and the effect of the graphitization or shrinkage and treats the following processes:
- Plate-like eutectic growth of А-type graphite
- Plate-like eutectic growth of D- type graphite
- Spheroidal-graphite eutectic growth
- White eutectic growth
- Transformation in solid state of austenite in ferrite and pearlite
- Disintegration to pearlite
For cast iron the following can be calculated:
- Distribution of the size of the eutectic cells (in mm)
- Distribution of the size of the platelets ( in mm)
- Quantity and distribution of under-cooled graphite
- Distribution of hardness Brinell (НВ)
- Distribution of the minimum limit of tensile strength (in N/mm2)
- Quantity of white cast iron
The program package MAGMASOFT is based on the latest modern mathematical models of physical processes going in the formation of the castings and this makes it extremely useful instrument for:
- Formation of high quality castings
- Prediction of product structure and mechanical qualities
- Optimization of wide circle of casting technologies
- Assessment and control of the manufactured production quality
- Improvement of the economical effectiveness of the casting technologies
By the developed mathematical models and program products different technological processes have been simulated and optimized in a number of plants and foundries in the country:
- Radomir Metal Industries, Radomir town
- METACOM, ILINDEN and ALUCOM, Pleven town
- SPARKI-ELTOS and OSAM, Lovech town
- CHUGUNOLEENE, Ihtiman town, etc.
