EnginSoft - Conference Abstracts

EnginSoft International Conference 2010
CAE Technologies for Industry

Die Casting process optimization to improve the component impact performance

Gramegna Nicola - EnginSoft (Italy)
Della Corte Emilia - EnginSoft (Italy)
Garcia Lorente Francisco - EnginSoft (Italy)

Abstract

The absorbed energy during impact test and the velocity reduction of the body are the reference diagram to evaluate the performance of the Al-alloy component under impact test. Tests and laboratory tools are sophisticated, expensive and the clamping system is specific for each component, but today the destructive test represent the ideal and final approach to validate the casting, unless the CAE tools are enable to replace (even though partially) the real lab test. A new virtual design chain tool is an ambitious target because it needs a deeply research and understanding of factors to define the elasto-plastic behavior of the Al-alloy material. The objective is more challenging in case of high pressure die casting process where the local mechanical properties depend strongly on foundry defects rather than microstructure.
The European research NADIA project has been awarded as reference FP6 project in automotive sector to integrate the manufacturing process with mechanical response of light alloys. The basic research activity was related to secondary light alloys, trace element and foundry process parameters effects with the successive application of material models in the engineering application. With particular reference to one demonstrator component, the high pressure die casting “Rack&Pinion”, a innovative correlation of defects (e.g. air inclusion, shrinkage porosity etc.) and mechanical properties has been implemented in MAGMASOFT simulation tool in order to transfer the realistic local ultimate tensile strength to LS-Dyna FEM code.
The final impact simulation, taking into account the local mechanical properties and residual stress, has been compared with test results to validate the full integrated virtual approach.