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3, 2008 383
Die Casting Mold Design of the Thin-walled Aluminum Case
by Computational Solidication Simulation
Young-Chan Kim
1)
, Chang-Seog Kang
1)
, Jae-Ik Cho
1)
, Chang-Yeol Jeong
1)
, Se-Weon Choi
1)
and Sung-Kil Hong
2)
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 cast-
ing 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 indus-
try for the housing of notebook computer and cellular
phone, etc.
High pressure die casting (HPDC) is an impor-
tant process in the manufacturing of high volume and
low cost components, such as automatic transmission
housing and electric/electronic housing, an econom-
ical 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 sur-
face fragmentation and splashing. The ordering in
which various parts of the die was lled and the posi-
tioning of the air vents are crucial to forming homo-
geneous 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 MAGMA-
soft 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 investi-
gated 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 pro-
cess productivity, including more eective control of
the die lling and die thermal performance. It is im-
portant for the various defects and incomplete lling
phenomenon to be prevented. Thus, the time loss
and economic expenses must be minimized
[7]
. For ac-
quiring optimal gating system, computational solidi-
cation simulation by using MAGMA soft with nite
volume method (FVM)
[8]
is conducted. The solidi-
cation simulation is able to calculate the mold lling,
solidication and the development of residual stresses
caused during the casting process for three gating de-
signs. 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 cm
3
and shot
sleeve lling was less than 27% for both gating de-
signs. Also, the initial temperature of the melt was
670