Patent ID: 8666706

Claim:
A method of mapping out a nodewise distribution of material properties within a cast component, said method comprising: configuring a computer system to comprise a data input, a data output, at least one processing unit and at least one of data-containing memory and instruction-containing memory that are cooperative with one another through a data communication path; receiving as input to said computer system nodal coordinates corresponding to both a finished part mesh simulation and a casting mesh simulation; receiving as input to said computer system material property information from a material property database; receiving as input to said computer system information pertaining to at least one of solidification simulation components and boundary conditions; determining values for at least one of solidification time and solidification rate based on said received at least one of solidification simulation components and boundary conditions and said received material property information at each node of said casting mesh simulation; integrating said determined values with said nodal coordinates from said finished part mesh simulation; calculating at least an approximation of material properties through an algorithm that corrects for nodewise differences in said received material property information, said algorithm comprising interpolating material properties between a high dendrite arm spacing number region of said cast component and a low dendrite arm spacing number region of said cast component, wherein the high dendrite arm spacing number corresponds to an upper bound dendrite arm spacing value of neighboring nodal coordinates of the region and the low dendrite arm spacing number corresponds to a lower bound dendrite arm spacing value of neighboring nodal coordinates of the region; and mapping said approximated material properties to respective nodal coordinates of said finished part mesh simulation.