ESI Group's Casting Simulation Software Contributes to European Research Projects on Applied Material Science
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ESI Group's metallurgical development team has been selected to join two long-term European projects in the field of applied material science to study elemental changes during different phases of the casting process: ISA-PESR and IMPRESS. The team was chosen for its proven ability to develop and implement accurate material models to simulate complex solidification and solid state transformation phenomena. Throughout the duration of the projects, the company, in collaboration with other European companies and research institutes, will be developing new solutions for simulating/predicting these various changes that will be added to its selection of simulation software.
ISA-PESR (Integrative Simulation Of Advanced Protective Gas Electro-Slag Remelting), began in September 2004 and is scheduled to end in 2007. This innovative project is dedicated to the simulation of advanced protective gas electro-slag-remelting for the production of high quality steels. ESI Group of France is developing specific solvers enabling the modeling of complex electromagnetic interactions during the casting process. A commercial module tailored to the needs of the remelting industry will be developed and coupled with the company's casting simulation.
Montan University of Leoben in Austria coordinated the project, along with the participation of prestigious partners such as ALD Vacuum Technologies in Germany, Bahler Edelstahl GmbH in Austria and Centro Sviluppo Materiali in Italy. This is financed by a research program from the European Commission Research Fund for Coal and Steel.
The IMPRESS (Intermetallic Materials Processing In Relation To Earth And Space Solidification) project began in November 2004 and will continue through 2009. The goal of the project, in which 41 European institutes and companies are participating, is to understand the critical link between the material processing, structure, and properties of novel higher-performance multi-functional intermetallic alloys and to transfer this new knowledge into breakthrough prototypes tailored for extreme applications such as turbine blades and fuel cells.
ESI Group's Swiss subsidiary, Calcom ESI, will focus on coupled casting and heat treatment simulation, prediction of material properties altered by porosity, and assessment of the solid state transformation during heat treatment. The company is directly funded by the Swiss Secretariat for Education and Research, and has been working closely with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. This project is part of the 6th Framework Program of the European Commission coordinated by the European Space Agency.
Involvement in these large-scale projects will benefit both the research participants and the company, says Marco Gremaud, Business Development Director, Casting Solutions, ESI Group. "These close collaborations with visionary companies and leading Universities and Research Institutes enable ESI Group to further develop its casting solutions and thereby to continuously provide industries worldwide with improved, reliable and sophisticated software products," he says.
ESI Group's Casting Solution:
Casting process simulation is now widely accepted as an important tool in product design and process development to improve casting yield and quality. ESI Group's casting portfolio includes ProCAST, the market leading finite element solution for casting process simulation, CALCOSOFT, for fast and efficient modeling of continuous casting processes and PAM-QUIKCAST, the finite difference solution for casting process evaluation.
About ESI Group:
ESI Group is a world-leading supplier and pioneer of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes that take into account the physics of materials. Its extensive suite of coherent, industry-oriented applications realistically simulate a product's behavior during testing to fine-tune manufacturing processes for desired product performance and evaluate the environment's impact on it. The products have a proven track record in manufacturing and represent a virtual engineering solution known as the Virtual Try-Out Space (VTOS), enabling virtual prototypes to be improved in a continuous and collaborative manner. This allows the company's solutions to work together and with other independently developed applications. By reducing costs and development lead times and enabling product/process synergies, VTOS solutions offer a competitive advantage by lessening the need for physical prototypes during product development. The company employs almost 500 high-level specialists worldwide covering more than 30 countries.
For further information, please contact:
ESI GROUP
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E-mail : nathalie.david-franc@esi-group.com
Web site: www.esi-group.com
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