Numerical simulation of solidification of liquid copper saturated in porous structures fabricated by sintered steel particles

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to solve solidification of liquid copper saturated in porous structure fabricated by sintered steel particles using a temperature-transforming model (TTM). Design/methodology/approach - The convection in the liquid region is modeled using Navier-Stokes equation with Darcy's term and Forchheimer's extension. The effect of natural convection is considered using the Boussinesq approximation. For the solid region, the velocity is set to zero by the Ramped Switch-Off Method (RSOM). The model was validated by comparing the results with existing experimental and numerical results with gallium as phase change material and packed glass beads as porous structure. Solidification of liquid copper saturated in sintered copper particles is then simulated and the effects of various parameters on solidification process were studied. Findings - The results indicate that the stronger convection effects are shown for the cases with high Raleigh number or high Darcy's number. However, when either Raleigh number or Darcy's number is reduced to below a certain order of magnitude, the solidification becomes conduction-controlled. Originality/value - This work is the first application of the TTM to solve solidification in porous media, which can find its application in post-processing of laser sintered parts.