heat & cooling optimizer

MTD SA, Route de Muraz 16, CH 3960 Sierre, Switzerland

[email protected] / www.m-td.com

HEAT & COOLING OPTIMIZER

mailto:[email protected]



MTD SA, Route de Muraz 16, CH 3960 Sierre,Switzerland [email protected] / www.m-td.com

INTRODUCTION

The Heating and Cooling Optimizer enables the user to perform optimization of the cooling process of profiles using fast simulations of the temperature field variations with time.

It has been automatized so that no prior knowledge of numerical simulation or methods is needed to perform simulations. The user must only provide process parameters.

It is based on the finite element method, which requires the generation of a mesh from a CAD file of the profile provided by the user.

It has been developed in cooperation with Cometal Engineering Spa (Italy), the worldwide known Company that has reached the leadership in the engineering and manufacturing of air and/or water cooling system for any size of extrusion press for aerospace, automotive, industrial and architectural products.





M-TD SA

M-TD is a Swiss company, with a background of more than 30 years of know-how and experience in Aluminium extrusion industry.

M-TD provides top-of-the range solutions for the extruders, expert advice, full conceptions, and fabricated dies as well as services in numerical simulation of manufacturing processes.

Our expertise and activity:

• Productivity improvements and cost reduction: technology expertise and continuous improvement for extrusion process, die conception and fabrication

• Die conception and optimization

• Training: die design, extrusion process & correction, numerical simulation

• Software development: Extrusion simulation, bearings calculation, profile heating & cooling optimization





COMETAL ENGINEERING

Cometal Engineering is a Company with a background of more than 40 years of know-how and experience in Engineering and Manufacturing of aluminum extrusion lines and aluminium scraps remelting foundries.

Cometal Engineering machines are designed keeping into account both economical and environmental aspects. Particular care is dedicated to solutions, that can decrease the scraps and the down time, save energy and labor costs, increase the quality of the finished products and, more generally, enhance the profits of the Customers.

Cometal Engineering is synonymous of innovative and reliable realizations and it is in condition to offer a considerable large range of products and services, from the “turnkey” supply of integrated plants, up to the single machines and the upgrading of existing equipments, by the application of Cometal Engineering most recent solutions .





COMETAL ENGINEERING

COMETAL’S COOLING SYSTEMS AT PRESS EXIT

Balanced Intensive Cooling System (BICS) with air, water, mist.

Mega BICS for automotive, railway and aerospace applications, realized for presses up to 120MN.

Semintensive Cooling System with air, water, mist.

Standing water wave quench.

Special water wave quench for automotive industry.





M-TD SA & COMETAL ENGINEERING PARTNESHIP

M-TD and Cometal Engineering have decided to join their expertise to propose the best solution for profile cooling process. HCO as been developed using the expertise on M-TD and validated by Cometal Engineering. Cometal Engineering is the official reseller of HCO for it equipment. M-TD provides HCO to extruders that have other cooling system equipment. In this case the software is adapted to customer equipment.





BENEFITS FOR EXTRUDERS

OPTIMIZE THE COOLING PROCESS OF YOUR PROFILES

HCO helps the extruder to set the parameters of the heat cooling system at the exit of the press before production. He can optimize cooling process for complex profiles making several simulation in a few time. He can adjust cooling parameters set to speed and heat profile changes. Easy to use and available in several languages (English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish), it can be directly installed on presses and used by operator





CAPABILITIES & MAIN FEATURES

THE HEAT COOLING SYSTEM HCO enables one to simulate the cooling phase of the profile once it exits the press. The unsteady temperature field in a section of the profile is computed versus time as the profile goes through different cooling stations.

In standard, HCO manages 4 cooling stations. This number can be increased on demand

Four types of cooling procedure can be also considered: • free convection in air, • forced convection with air stream from nozzles • soft cooling with water from nozzles • strong water cooling.

The difference between "strong" and "soft" cooling is the achievable range for the heat transfer coefficient






THE HEAT COOLING SYSTEM The number of nozzles and their position are defined in accordance to your equipment.

Water cooling station with 6 nozzles for COMETAL equipment

Water cooling station with 12 nozzles for specific equipment

(developed on customer demand)






THE USER INTERFACE

Intuitive and user friendly, the user interface describe the different phases to perform:

1. INPUT PROFILE: select the profile to simulate. A simple DXF file of the section is necessary

2. COOLING PARAMETERS: for each station define the type of cooling to apply and it parameters

3. COOLING SETTING: prepare and mesh the profile in few « click »

4. SOLVER: create or select a case folder and run the simulation

5. POST-PROCESSING: see the result and validate your cooling parameter set

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THE COOLING PARAMETERS INTERFACE

For each types of cooling procedure the user defines parameters

For air free cooling type it is just necessary to :

• Define the cooling zone number

• Define the heat transfer coefficient

• External air temperature







For air forced cooling type it is just necessary to :

• Define the cooling zone number

• Define the velocity of each nozzles

• External air temperature

• adjust vertical stroke

Position of nozzles are predefined according to your installation.

Parameters are saved, the user has just to manage adjustement to profile shape (« adjustable geometrical parameters » option)







For soft water cooling type the same option as for air forced cooling

For strong water cooling, nozzles angles can be modified






THE COOLING SETTINGS PHASE

It consists on preparing data for simulation it made in 3 short steps

1. Decompose profile geometry : HCO divide the profile into segment to apply heat conditions according to the cooling parameters set. The result can be viewed using « Visualize jets » option

Visualize all cooling jets Visualize by cooling type







2. Set profile contours: It consist on creating the surface for mesh operation by selecting the different contour of the profile

first contour to select

second contour to select







3. Mesh the profile:






THE SOLVER PHASE

1. Create a folder to register your case

2. Select this folder (or an existing folder)

3. Prepare data for solver

4. Run solver

Depending on the case an mesh model the calculation takes from few second to 1 or 2 minutes.






THE POST-PROCESSING PHASE

2 options are available

Visualize the cooling effect under the time through an animation Visualize temperature curves

from selected points

If the result is ok parameter set can be applied on production Else the user can perform a new analysis to try to optimize process





CONCLUSION

POWERFUL SOFTWARE

HCO is simply to use and fast.

HCO is configurable and can be adapted to any Cooling system

HCO is the software you need to improve your production

PLANNED IMPROVEMENT IN FUTURE RELEASE

Automatization of Cooling Setting phase: decomposition of profile geometry and meshing will be done in background.

Multi hole process: the actual version support single hole process. Simulation for multi-holes process will be integrated.

Profile deformation: Actually the deformation of the profile is deducted by the user through the difference of temperature curves.

To help the user to understand the profile deformation due to cooling process, an additional feature will be implemented into the next release.


