Prediction of Part Distortion in Die Casting

The die casting process is one of the net shape manufacturing techniques and is widely used to produce high production castings with tight tolerances for many industries. An understanding of the stress distribution and the deformation pattern of parts produced by die casting will result in less deviation from the part design specification, a better die design and eventually more productivity and cost savings. This report presents methods that can be used to simulate the die casting process in order to predict the deformation and stresses in the produced part and assesses the degree to which distortion modeling is practical for die casting at the current time. A coupled thermal-mechanical finite elements model was used to simulate the die casting process. The simulation models the effect of thermal and mechanical interaction between the casting and the die. It also includes the temperature dependant material properties of the casting. Based on a designed experiment, a sensitivity analysis was conducted on the model to investigate the effect of key factors. These factors include the casting material model, material properties and thermal interaction between casting and dies. To verify the casting distortion predictions, it was compared against the measured dimensions of produced parts. The comparison included dimensions along and across the parting plane and the flatness of one surface.