Patent ID: 8214182

Claim:
A system to predict at least one of a residual stress and distortion of a quenched aluminum casting, the system comprising: an information input configured to receive information relating to at least one of a plurality of at least one of nodes, elements, and zones of the aluminum casting during a quenching thereof; an information output configured to convey information relating to at least one of the residual stress and distortion of the aluminum casting predicted by the system; a processing unit; and a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising a computer-readable program code embodied therein, said computer-readable medium cooperative with the processing unit, the information input and the information output such that the received information is operated upon by the processing unit and computer-readable program code to be presented to the information output as a prediction of at least one of the residual stress and distortion of the aluminum casting, said computer-readable program code comprising a simulation module, a heat transfer module, a strain and stress analysis module, and a user material subroutine module defining a material constitutive model, wherein: the simulation module simulates a quenching process of a virtual aluminum casting replicative of the aluminum casting and the quenching thereof, the virtual aluminum casting comprising a plurality of at least one of virtual surface nodes, elements, and zones correlated with the surface geometries of the aluminum casting, the virtual aluminum casting respectively comprising a plurality of at least one of dimensional nodes, elements, and zones, the heat transfer module calculates a plurality of heat transfer coefficients specific to the respective virtual surface nodes, elements, and zones, the heat transfer module calculates a plurality of at least one of virtual node-specific, element-specific, and zone-specific temperatures using the heat transfer coefficients, the virtual node-specific, element-specific and zone specific-temperatures respectively specific to a time of the simulated quenching, the strain and stress analysis module calculates a total strain of the respective virtual nodes, elements, and zones to define at least one of a virtual node-specific, element-specific, and zone-specific stress-strain curve using the respective virtual node-specific, element-specific, and zone-specific temperatures and a coefficient of thermal expansion/contraction, the material constitutive model defined by the user material subroutine module calculates a plurality of thermal stresses and strains at integration points defining the dimensional elements and zones of the respective virtual aluminum casting, the user material subroutine module calculates a strain rate and a change in strain at the respective integration points, and the material constitutive model calculates at least one of a residual stress and distortion at the respective integration points to predict at least one residual stress and distortion of the aluminum casting.