Die design strategy for improved productivity and quality in die casting

A die design methodology has been developed to decrease the cycle rime and improve the integrity and soundness of castings. The strategy consists of the following steps: 1) march a computational model to existing measured temperature histories during each cast; 2) modify the thermal characteristics of the tooling to decrease the cycle time and promote directional solidification (since these factors control the production capacity of the casting process), and 3) map the tooling modifications from the optimum model directly onto the tooling design to provide design engineers with direction in determining locations for chills, cooling circuits and insulation. This design approach was implemented in a low-pressure diecast manufacturing plant that produces aluminum alloy (A356) wheels. The improvements suggested by the finite element model have resulted in an 80% increase in production capacity (10-18 wheels/hour).