Assessing mould costs analysing manufacturing processes of cavities

Pressure die casting mould manufacturing companies have difficulties assessing manufacturing costs for bid generation. In particular, manufacturing effort of mould cavities could hardly be predicted accurately. Due to varying complexity of casting part geometry, processing time of manufacturing cavities appears to be a rather unpredictable factor influencing costs calculation of moulds. This article introduces a novel method for generating and analysing computer-aided design (CAD) models of mould cavities to compute the tool accessibility. Using geometrical information of cavities, working areas for different milling head geometries are determined, and processing times are calculated. Thereupon, a three-step accessibility analysis (AA) has been conducted. Beside the AA method, a CAD-based application of the calculation tool ‘visual form calculator’ (VFC), developed at IFW, is presented. Using the VFC, companies are now able to generate a virtual model of the contour element in order to assess mould costs accurately when analysing manufacturing processes of cavities.