Industrial Case Study of Low-Pressure Die Casting of AlSi9Cu1Mg Aluminium Alloy to Reduce Casting Defects

Low-pressure die casting process is extensively used for casting ofAl alloys. It is still challenging to reduce defects in automotive Al alloy casting to improve product quality and reduce production cost. The various parameters like metal temperature, !lling pressure, pouring time, solidi!cation time had a great in"uence on the casting defects. Researchers continuously attempted to reduce casting defects. In the present study, an attempt was made to study low-pressure die casting ofAlSi9Cu1Mg aluminium alloy. This study was carried out at a foundry located at Pune (Maharashtra, India). The objective of this study was to identify the various casting defects and to investigate the important operating parameters' values to get defect free castings. The most important casting defects in low-pressure die-casting of aluminum alloys were identi!ed as shrinkage, un- !lling, blowhole, porosity, extra-metal, boil, and wire-mesh. The repetitive occurrence of casting defects was identi!ed by conducting experiments at different values of temperature and pressure. It was observed that the metal temperature of 725ºC and !lling pressure of 0.25 bar produced less defects; hence it was suggested to cast AlSi9Cu1Mg aluminium alloy at these values to get castings with minimum defects.