Modeling and simulation to predict die temperature gradients in high pressure die casting

High pressure die casting is widely used to produce comlex and precise components. Adoption of giga casting has marked a shift in the landscape of high-volume manufacturing, particularly within the automotive industry. Giga casting involve the use of large high pressure die casting machines to produce aluminium components that were traditionally assembled from several smaller parts. While the manufacturing method is efficient for high volume production, the cost of making the permanent molds are high. By using simulations to study the thermal distribution in the mold, conclusions and optimizations can be made at an earlier stage in development. This study attempts to model the high pressure die casting process to visualize temperature gradients in the mold. The rigging and simulation is done with MAGMASOFT®, a commercial casting simulation software. No simulation can be an exact copy of the real process. Considerations must be taken to geometry, process parameters and the casting cycle when creating the model. A systematic iterative approach is taken to reach a satisfactory result. The study concludes that by using MAGMASOFT® for rigging and simulation it is possible to study temperature gradients in the mold. By iterating on the model, and incorporate tempering channels and spraying, the simulation yields results that more accurately represent real-world thermal behaviour. The validated simulation setup allows for result export to other platforms for further research and optimization.