A Correlation Analysis of Cooling-Induced Temperature Changes

Abstract

Proper temperature control is essential for producing superior quality components and yielding high production rates in high temperature manufacturing processes. Due to the closure of machine tools such as casting dies during production, it is usually very difficult to monitor their local surface temperatures without destructively inserting thermal sensors into them. However, the measurement of cooling water temperature at the coolant outlet is relatively unproblematic. This work demonstrates that there is a correlation between these two temperatures. As an example, the effect of the local surface temperature of a casting die on the cooling water outlet temperature is analyzed from a laboratory die casting process simulator. Based on the system identification theory, a control-oriented linear time-invariant model has been developed, which correlates the local die temperature to the cooling water outlet temperature. The model enables the prediction of the local die temperature with the measurements of the cooling water temperature. Thus, it provides an alternative approach other than the destructive sensing method to acquire the local die temperatures, and the model could be applied to design a real-time temperature control system for die cooling process.