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Die Casting Mold Design of the Thin-walled Aluminum Case by Computational Solidication Simulation
Young-Chan Kim1) , Chang-Seog Kang1) , Jae-Ik Cho1) , Chang-Yeol Jeong1) , Se-Weon Choi1) and Sung-Kil Hong2)
1) Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, Gwangju, Korea 2) Chonnam National University, Gwangju, Korea
[Manuscript received September 22, 2007]

Recently, demand for the lightweight alloy in electric/electronic housings has been greatly increased. However, among the lightweight alloys, aluminum alloy thin-walled die casting is problematic because it is quite dicult to achieve sucient uidity and feedability to ll the thin cavity as the wall thickness becomes less than 1 mm. Therefore, in this study, thin-walled die casting of aluminum (Al-Si-Cu alloy: ALDC 12) in size of notebook computer housing and thickness of 0.8 mm was investigated by solidication simulation (MAGMA soft) and actual casting experiment (Buhler Evolution B 53D). Three dierent types of gating design, nger, tangential and split type with 6 vertical runners, were simulated and the results showed that sound thin-walled die casting was possible with tangential and split type gating design because those gates allowed aluminum melt to ow into the thin cavity uniformly and split type gating system was preferable gating design comparing to tangential type gating system at the point of view of soundness of casting and distortion generated after solidication. Also, the solidication simulation agreed well with the actual die-casting and the casting showed no casting defects and distortion. KEY WORDS: Aluminum casting alloy; Thin-wall die casting; Solidication simulation

1. Introduction Even though silicon-containing aluminum alloys are known to be one of the most important casting alloys due to their superior casting characteristics and unique combination of mechanical and physical properties such as low density and price, moderately high strength, good castability[1,2,3,4] , manufacturing of thin-wall aluminum die casting components, less than 1.0 mm in thickness, is generally known to be very dicult task to achieve sucient uidity and feedability. This leads to the limited application of the aluminum alloy in the elds of materials industry for the housing of notebook computer and cellular phone, etc. High pressure die casting (HPDC) is an important process in the manufacturing of high volume and low cost components, such as automatic transmission housing and electric/electronic housing, an economical and ecient method for producing components requiring low surface roughness and high dimensional accuracy[5] . During die casting process the molten aluminum alloy is injected into the die cavity at high velocity (30-100 m/s) and under high pressure (50-80 MPa) through complex gate and runner systems[6] . The geometric complexity of the dies strongly leads to three dimensional uid ow with signicant free surface fragmentation and splashing. The ordering in which various parts of the die was lled and the positioning of the air vents are crucial to forming homogeneous casting components with minimal entrapped void. This is inuenced by the design of the gating system and the geometry of the die[7] . Therefore, the gating system has to be optimized for soundness of surface and no defect.
Ph.D., to whom correspondence should be addressed, E-mail: kimochan@kitech.re.kr.

Therefore, in this work simulations of lling and solidication analyses by using the MAGMAsoft were presented in order to nd the optimal die design necessary to prevent defects. Moreover the optimal die casting conditions for producing 297 mm210 mm0.8 mm thin-walled aluminum components (Al-Si-Cu alloy: ALDC 12) was investigated by actual casting experiment (Buhler evolution B 53D) for 2 dierent gating systems: tangential and split type. 2. Experimental Numerical simulation oers a powerful and cost eective way to study the eectiveness of dierent die designs and lling processes, ultimately leading to improvements of both product quality and process productivity, including more eective control of the die lling and die thermal performance. It is important for the various defects and incomplete lling phenomenon to be prevented. Thus, the time loss and economic expenses must be minimized[7] . For acquiring optimal gating system, computational solidication simulation by using MAGMA soft with nite volume method (FVM)[8] is conducted. The solidication simulation is able to calculate the mold lling, solidication and the development of residual stresses caused during the casting process for three gating designs. The initial conditions and process parameters and the chemical compositions of casting alloy for this study are described in Tables 1 and 2. As shown in Table 1, the melt ladled was about 250 cm3 and shot sleeve lling was less than 27% for both gating designs. Also, the initial temperature of the melt was 670 C. Plunger diameter and active length were 70 and 250 mm, respectively. The optimum number of meshes used in simulation was about 36 and 30 million.

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Table 1 Process parameters for computational solidication simulation Tangential type Geometry data Molten metal ladled In-gate area Projected area Characteristic wall thickness Quality Sleeve data Plunger diameter Active length Shot sleeve lling Plunge area shot sleeve volume Process data Slow shot velocity Theoretical lling time Fast shot velocity Cavity lling time Velocity at in-gate 242.957 cm 1.496 cm2 804.126 cm 0.8 mm 60 MPa 70 mm 250 mm 25.252 % 4310.913 mm 0.35 m/s 8.830 ms 2.2 m/s 9.272 ms 56.596 m/s
2 2 3

Split type 258.084 cm3 2.253 cm2 823.517 cm2 0.8 mm 60 MPa 70 mm 250 mm 26.825 % 4310.913 mm2 1077.728 cm3 0.35 m/s 8.830 ms 3.2 m/s 6.354 ms 54.664 m/s

1077.728 cm3

Table 2 The chemical compositions of ALDC12 alloy (in wt pct) Alloy ALDC12 Cu 1.53.5 Si 9.612.0 Mg 0.3 Zn 1.0 Fe 0.8 Mn 0.5 Ni 0.5 Sn 0.3 Al Bal.

Fig.1 Schematic illustration of nger type gating system: (a) case 1, (b) case 2

Fig.2 Temperature distribution of nger type gating system: (a) case 1, (b) case 2

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Fig.3 Schematic illustration of tangential type gating system: (a) case 3, (b) case 4

Fig.4 Temperature distribution of tangential type gating system: (a) case 3, (b) case 4

3. Results and Discussion 3.1 Results of temperature distribution For the decision of optimal gating system, the lling simulation was conducted for 3 dierent gating designs: nger, tangential and split type. First, the nger type gating system has the merits that are maintenance of the melt temperature and distribution of the melt. As shown in Fig.1, two cases for shape and size of runner and gate were investigated. Figure 2 shows the temperature distribution and lling patterns. Both case 1 and 2 had the melt with temperature below liquidus after passing through the ingate and at that point the melt wasnt able to form the uniform melt ow. And nger type gating system was very dicult to control approach time at ingate area. The tangential type gating system has no interference during lling, continuous and directional melt ow. Figure 3 shows tangential type gating designs, with extended ingate and 85% length compared to the end line of casting. The results of case 3 showed that the melt injected dropped the temperature at the last lling area but it didnt separate with the main stream. On the other hand, in the case 4 the cavity was lled with melt above the liquidus temperature

but it occurred back ow near gate because metal pressure didnt aect the casting by the short ingate length as shown in Fig.4. The back ow might cause surface defects. The split type gating system is easy to control the approach time at ingate area and minimize the distortion of casting after trimming. Two cases were investigated for the size and shape of the ingate. Figure 5 shows split type gating designs with 4 and 6 vertical runners. As shown in Fig.6, the case 5 shows the melt introduced separately in cavity with thin-wall is cooled strongly. It may cause the misrun and defects like ow line and ow mark. The case 6 with 6 vertical runners minimizing the distance among ingates had the eect of minimizing for drop temperature, maintained continuous ow during lling. Three dierent types gating design were used and the results showed that the sound thin-walled die casting was possible with tangential and split type gating design because those gates allowed aluminum melt ow to into the thin-wall cavity uniformly. 3.2 Results of air entrapment, residual stress, displacement and casting experiment It was found that tangential type gating system

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with extended ingate and split type gating system exhibited quite uniform melt ow throughout the lling

Fig.5 Schematic illustration of split type gating system: (a) case 5, (b) case 6

Fig.6 Temperature distribution of split type gating system: (a) case 5, (b) case 6

Fig.7 Results of air entrapment; (a) tangential type gating system, (b) split type gating system

of the cavity. So these two gating designs were selected to study the solidication and stress simulation. The defects were predicted by air entrapment. As shown in Fig.7, the tangential type gating design showed higher back pressure (about 1 MPa) and air volume than split type, which might result in air porosity. On the other hand, split type gating design

had little air pocket, so the location of overow has to be corrected. Since thin-walled aluminum housing fabricated in this work was only 0.8 mm in thickness, the residual stress and replacement after trimming are very important factors to its mass production. Figure 8 shows the results of residual stress and replacement after

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trimming. Results of residual stress were both tangential and split type design, but the cold crack was less possible to occur after solidication. Moreover the value after trimming was nearly zero. Results of replacement after trimming (Fig.9) showed tangential

type and split type had each displacement of 0.8 mm and 0.7 mm for x-direction after trimming. It was predicted that this displacement was caused by machining of the runner.

Fig.8 Results of residual stress: (a) tangential type gating system, (b) split type gating system

Fig.9 Results of replacement after trimming: (a) tangential type gating system, (b) split type gating system

Fig.10 Results of actual casting experiment: (a) tangential type gating system, (b) split type gating system

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For the comparison with results of computational solidication simulation and actual casting, the silicon-containing aluminum casting alloy, ALDC 12, was cast by using a high speed die casting machine with both tangential and split type gating systems. As shown in Fig.10, defects including misrun and cracks were observed in the specimens in the tangential type gating system while the split type resulted in sound casting with the highest injection speed of 4.5 m/s. 4. Conclusions (1) It was necessary for minimizing temperature drop, maintenance of continuous ow during lling to control defects. (2) The results of computational solidication simulation showed that split type gating system was preferable gating design to tangential type at the point of view of ow pattern and distortion generated after solidication. (3) The results of solidication simulation agreed very well with those of actual die casting.

Acknowledgements This work was supported by Korea Institute of Industrial Technology and Gwangju Metropolitan City under The Advanced Elements and Materials Industry Development Program. REFERENCES [1 ] The Japan Inst. of Light Metals, Microstructure and Properties of Aluminum Alloys, 1991, 233. [2 ] G.K.Sigworth: AFS Trans., 1983, 91, 7. [3 ] O.Madelaine-Dupuich and J.Stolarz: Mater. Sci. Forum, 1996, 217-222, 1343. [4 ] John E. Gruzleski, Bernard M. Closset: The Treatment of Liquid Aluminum-Silicon Alloys, AFS, 1990, 13. [5 ] Matthew S. Dargusch: J. Mater. Process. Technol., 2006, 180, 37. [6 ] P.Hairy and M.Richard: in Proceedings of the 19th International Die-Casting Congress and Exposition, NADCA, 1997. [7 ] P.W.Cleary et al.: Applied Mathematical Modeling, 2006, 30, 1406. [8 ] J.K.Lee, J.K.Choi and C.P.Hong: J. KFS, 1998, 18, 555. [9 ] S.Chellapillar: MS Thesis, the Ohio State University, Ohio, 1997.