can we do Aluminium die cast flow simulation and tool design in solidworks flow simulation.

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Can SOLIDWORKS® Flow Simulation simulate the flow of molten aluminum?

The SOLIDWORKS® Flow Simulation developers wrote the following: “We can consider molten aluminum as a liquid both Newtonian and non-Newtonian. For Non-Newtonian liquid user should know its viscosity to set it in Engineering Data Base. We can consider its flow and heat transfer. But it should be a liquid. Any phase transformation we cannot consider for this liquid.”

SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation is capable of computing laminar flows of inelastic non-Newtonian Liquids as described in the “technicalreference.pdf” starting on page 1-13 through 1-15. All available non-Newtonian viscosity models are based on the assumption that the flow’s shear stress is a function of the flow’s shear rate. There are five viscosity models of inelastic non-Newtonian viscous liquids available in the Engineering Database. Each of these viscosity models require very specific user-defined information regarding the non-Newtonian liquid.

There are many different types of non-Newtonian fluids for example viscoelastic and time-independent. Each of these two non-Newtonian types also have subtypes including shear thickening, shear thinning, thixotropic, and Kelvin fluids. The non-Newtonian fluid properties are every important, because there are so many different types of non-Newtonian fluids. The non-Newtonian effects of molten plastic are very different from molten metal due to these different types of non-Newtonian fluids. There are big differences in non-Newtonian affects among different types of plastics and molten metals.  In addition there is a very large difference in molten temperatures of plastics and metals. In general it all depends on the non-Newtonian fluid properties users have for their fluid material at the temperatures they expected to simulate.

A SW solution is: Plastic Simulation (it is different from Flow Simulation and you have to purchase the licence) or go with Autodesk MoldFlow; both are powerful tools.