LM6-CastBench: A Geometry-Aware Simulation Dataset for Transient Thermal Prediction in LM6 Sand Casting
Suhani Kolhatkar, Anand Khandekar
Abstract
Transient thermal fields during solidification connect casting process conditions and cooling behaviour to the formation of defect-prone regions in aluminum cast ings. Repeatedly solving this thermal problem across geometries and process conditions is computationally expensive, motivating data-driven surrogate models. However, existing machine-learning studies on casting thermal behaviour rely on study-specific simulation databases that do not support reproducible geometry-level benchmarking. We introduce LM6-CastBench, an open simulation dataset for geometry-aware learning of transient thermal fields in LM6 aluminum sand casting, combining three geometry families, ten variants per family, five pouring tempera tures, and three mould temperatures (450 geometry-process cases in total). Each case retains CAD geometry, unstructured mesh connectivity, spatial descriptors, process metadata, and time-resolved nodal temperatures. We benchmark a point wise MLP against a spatially structured U-Net under geometry-level data splits; the U-Net reduces temperature-field errors by a large margin, with the biggest gains on geometries with localized features and abrupt section changes. LM6-CastBench gives researchers a reproducible dataset and benchmark for geometry-aware surro gate modelling of casting thermal behaviour.