An inverse approach for the interfacial heat transfer parameters in alloys solidification

Highlights: • Assessment of a contact resistance at metal/mold interface was developed. • The Levenberg-Marquardt was used to obtain accurate parameters of this contact resistance. • The finite volume method was used for representing the cooling process of alloy casting. • The numerical methodology is accurate and the mean errors obtained are very small. -- Abstract: The interfacial heat transfer coefficient at metal/mold plays an important role for explaining the energy extraction during solidification process. Experiments on heat transfer of binary metallic alloys has been constantly made for microstructure analysis, which are mainly based on cooling rates of liquid metals. Solidification process is still a challenge to numerical techniques due to typically presence of multiphase transport phenomena. In this paper, the Levenberg-Marquardt technique is used to obtain the parameters of a representing function for the contact resistance at metal/mold interface, aiming to determine the interfacial heat transfer coefficient. The application of finite volume method for representing the cooling process of an alloy casting in a mold is also proposed. To assess the numerical approach, the removal of heat in only one side of the mold is taken into account, in order to ensure upward, and unidirectional solidification. The objective function used is obtained calculating the difference between numerical and experimental temperatures. The results are compared with data available in the literature, yielding good performance for both direct and inverse problems.