FUTURE OF GRAVITY DIE CASTING PROCESS , CHALLENGES AHEAD SOME EXPERIENCES IN GRAVITY DIE CASTING OF PISTONS

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By M.S.Ramaprasad
( Exporter of Auto Components & A Foundry Consultant )
Abstract Todays Global Green Initiative, Focus on Light Weighting of Automobiles, the trends in the International Trade and the Labour inadequacy issues are all expected to bring about drastic and speedy changes in foundry industry. The highly polluting and energy intensive Sand Casting Process (SCP) will have to give way, partly, to Metal Mould Casting Processes ( MMCP), including Gravity Die Casting (GDC) to a good extent. Recent trends indicate this shift form SCP to GDC both in the case of ferrous and aluminium alloy castings. Development of stronger aluminium alloys including Metal Matrix Composites (MMC) will permit the use of much thinner sections for a given application. This factor, in addition to the recent major advancements in Pressure Die Casting ( PDC) Process &, Squeeze casting process will shift part of the GDC business to these. Recent discovery of Bi-Film oxide, by Prof. John. Campbell has a created a revolution and has a big role to play in the coming years. It has already given rise to many new processes. Newer processes are like to emerge. Based on Prof. Campbells findings and recommendations, foundrymen have to rethink on their melting / melt treatment techniques and the way the gating / filling systems are designed. As a result of much higher strengths attainable by the elimination of Bi-Film oxides in a given alloy, Prof. Campbell, expects that new standards for the alloys specifications will emerge. As such the component design and hence the casting process will have a shift. Today, use of Recycled Alloys in aluminium cast houses is quite common and is a necessity from the point of view of environment and commerce. This has given rise to newer problem. Foundrymen have to understand the influence of trace elements on the castability of the alloys and the way to combat the bad effects of the same. Metallurgists who spent more than a century creating new alloys are now working seriously on ways and means of de-alloying and elimination of trace elements for the recycled alloys. The author has come across a few interesting cases that were a consequence of some of the above trends in the Al-Si alloy Piston production using the GDC. Two such cases are cited. 1) March towards Green Foundries The dream for a Greener World calls for the foundry industry, amongst a few others, to seriously work on Environmental and Energy Consumption issues. The foundry industry in general, and sand casting operation in particular are known for their environmental pollution. Countries in the west are slowly shutting down their foundries due to severe pollution problems associated. They are finding it difficult to attract the labour to work in the foundries, particularly the sand casting ones due to health hazards like heat, smoke and dust. More and more of their casting requirements are being met by countries like India, China and Brazil. While this is a good sign for us in terms business opportunity, the national problems associated overweigh this advantage. More and more restrictions on sand mining can be expected. Sand transportation, reclamation process will become prohibitively costly. Disposal of used sand will be a major Problem. The developing countries will become the DUMP YARDS for the used sand. Government regulations and norms for pollution control will become stricter and Disposal of Used Sand will pose a very serious problem.

2) Gravity Die Casting

Consequent to the above developments, the Sand Casting Process (SCP) has to slowly but surely, at least partly, give way to metal mould casting process (MMCP) including GDC. This calls for a great effort by the foundry community. The change from MMCP to GDC will have to move a faster rate than the present. Major developments in gravity die casting can be expected in the next two decades. This switchover is applicable not only to non-ferrous castings but also to an extent to ferrous castings as well. One of the other advantages of Gravity Die Casting process over the conventional sand casting process is the heat efficiency. There is no simple practical way to recover the heat from the sand after the casting is poured. In the case of Metal mould casting, the heat in the mould remains in the process loop. 3) Ferrous Gravity Die Casting. Ferrous gravity die casting process which was originally initiated in 1920s laid dormant for almost 60 years before taking off the ground (Ref.1). Late !960s and early 1970s saw a few publications indicating the commercial applications of this process here and there ( Ref.2,3,4,5,6). The publication in 1982 (Ref.1) indicated that Ferrous gravity die casting had already made a big head way and being mass produced in many countries - Europe & North America to an extent and Russia & Japan to a large extent. A publication by M/s Cast -Tec in 1989 ( Ref.7) revealed that a large number of components of grey and ductile iron castings - that included compressors, engine crankshafts, connecting rods, steering knuckles and components, hydraulic components, pump housing, pulleys, brake rotors, refrigerator cranks, electric motor end frames, hub type castings, brake carriers, golf club heads, pipe fittings, etc. - were being produced on a regular basis using their patented system of GDC. The author of this present paper, in fact, employed this process of Cast Iron gravity Die Casting (based upon his research experience in this field during 1973-1975) for the mass production of several automotive components (brake discs, brake drums for hundreds of models of Japanese, European and American cars, LCVs, trucks and busses, And for producing many simple shaped engineering components like pulleys, bushes, flanges, rollers, couplings, shafts, etc.), in a plant that he established in 1990 in Kenya, East Africa. The process was employed with great success for nearly 12 years. Attempts are being made to introduce this process in a few foundries in India. This process offers a significant reduction in riser volume due to the absence of mould dilation, which is very common in sand castings. This process will eventually become a common feature in the Indian scenario. 4) Light Weighting Today, Light weighting of Automobiles is a major focus with a view to reduce the fuel consumption and hence the emissions. Auto Majors are dreaming of All Aluminium Cars. Many ferrous casting are being and will be replaced by predominantly Aluminium castings. Consequently, proportionately, more demand for gravity die cast components can be expected. This will be a significant change. 5) Impact of Advancements in PDC PDC castings generally have inherent porosity both shrinkage and air porosity. Hence for a long time, conventionally, PDC was used for mass production of thin walled castings of lesser integrity at a lower cost. It is no more the case today. With the introduction of Auto pouring, Vacuum assisted operation and servo control system for monitoring the shot velocities with utmost accuracy the situation has changed drastically. Todays modern PDC machines with such controls are capable of producing high integrity xray casting as well. This development will also eventually take away some part of business of gravity die -casting. 6) Impact of the development of newer / stronger materials . Newer high strength aluminium alloys and Metal Matrix Composites (MMC) are being developed making it possible for much thinner sections to perform under the given service conditions. With this, many of the present day castings will be designed with thinner sections which may be beyond the limits of the gravity Die casting process but possible with Pressure die casting process .

The author of this paper is presently associated with such a case involving the mass production of a non automotive piston ( which at two locations has a wall thickness of about 1.00 mm only over an area of nearly 4.5 sq. cm ) for the US market , and another highly loaded compressor component , both requiring Level 1 x-ray quality, using the PDC process. Similar cases of reversal from GDC to PDC, in the very near future, is quite likely. Anticipating such a trend, some gravity die casting foundries overseas are working on ways and means of producing thin wall castings by GDC. Process by employing graphite moulds instead of the conventional metal moulds. The gravity die casters in India need to consider this. Today It is quite common to see many GDC piston manufacturers in the country employing vacuum filling of the die. 7) Impact of development of squeeze cast components Any alloy hard to cast by GDC may be easier to cast by Squeeze Casting ( SC). Squeeze cast Ceramic Fiber Reinforced (CFR) Al-Si alloy pistons have proved to perform better at elevated temperatures. For instance, the company ART, a subsidiary of Japans Toyota are producing more than a few million of such pistons annually. China has made a big headway too in producing them on industrial scale. It is reported that upto now about 400000 MMC pistons made by squeeze casting process have been put into use in a few of their commercial vehicles (Ref.8). Indian piston manufactures need to make a note of this. Some of todays GDC pistons may move into this category. Piston is only one example and the situation is very well applicable to many other components. 8) Impact of sensational discovery of Bi-Film oxide concept by Prof. John. Campbell. The recent sensational discovery of the Bifilm Oxide (this is not the bigger oxide / slag particles that we are familiar with) by Prof. Campbell has created a revolution in the field of foundry. According to him nearly every casting suffers from millions of these bifilm oxides that were hitherto unsuspected and went undetected (for over a century !!! ) due to their being so small (nanometres or micrometres ) and so thin. Today with his theory of bifilm oxides, he is able to explain beyond doubt, the reasons for several foundry problems like gas and shrinkage porosity, hot tearing, mechanical failure and corrosion behaviour. No foundryman can afford to miss out his publications (Ref.9,10,11). He not only predicted the presence of bifilm oxides in liquid melts but was able to successfully demonstrate its presence beyond doubt by a Novel Technique using Reduced pressure apparatus. He has also successfully demonstrated the bad effects of these oxide films. Based on his findings, he has developed many new processes to eliminate the bifilm defect which result in defect free castings, and castings with much higher mechanical properties. The author claims that this is beginning to set new standards in castings. Alloy specifications will possibly be re written. The same alloy without bifilm entrapment exhibit much higher strengths and hence the castings with much lesser wall thickness will serve the purpose. This casting wall thickness reduction will again push some of the castings form Gravity Die casting process to PDC. Based upon the recommendations of Prof. Campbell on how to avoid the bifilms, foundrymen have started rethinking on their melting, melt treatment and casting techniques. His recommendation to employ naturally pressurized filling system instead of the conventional pressurized or un-pressurized system work very well in providing a non turbulent filling which is the main requirement for avoidance of bifilm formation during filling. This combination of bifilm free melt and filling has been found to yield amazing results. The net result is the improvement in the quality of the castings , lower rejection level and drastic reduction in the feeder dimensions. The foundrymen have started thinking newly on the gating designs and many new flow simulation softwares that adopt this principle have emerged recently. This is a very valuable tool for a general foundry practitioner including gravity die caster. His book Castings Practice The 10 Rules of Castings is a potential guide for all practicing foundrymen. 9) Impact of the usage of Recycled Aluminium Alloys. Some 10 years ago, an aluminium casting producer would feel delicate to tell his customers that he is using recycled material as an input. Today, however, things have changed and the use of recycled alloys for casting production is a common practice.

A Russian Book Casting Aluminium Alloys published as recently as 2007 ( Ref.12) touches upon some of the very interesting and important issues connected with this . The following paragraphs from the Preface of that book is an eye opener to all aluminium casting producers. Aluminum castings can be and indeed are produced with very substantial amounts of recycled aluminum scrap. For example, in the USA, Western Europe, and Japan up to 7580% of the overall alloy mass comes from recycled aluminum / scrap. This is several times higher than the corresponding numbers for wrought aluminum alloys. Earlier it was hypothesized that the general level of properties required of cast aluminum products was lower, and they were used mostly for the production of noncritical (e.g., not heavily loaded) parts. Indeed, for such parts the application of recycled aluminum with elevated levels of impurities was quite acceptable. However, during the last 10 or 15 years this situation has started to change. Due to considerable improvements in casting technologies, now it is possible to produce high-quality castings with properties that are comparable to those of similar wrought products. Moreover, this can be done not only for high-quality alloys, but also for those manufactured with substantial amounts of aluminum scrap. In the latter case the advantage, of course, is in lower production costs. Significant improvements in the quality of shape castings were achieved due to improved production processes. Today it is possible to employ modern methods of molten metal handling, which result in dramatic reduction of harmful nonmetallic impurities. Hot iso static pressing is used to reduce shrinkage porosity. All these, and many other, innovations result in significant improvement of aluminum shape casting quality. There are several important requirements to casting aluminum alloys: good corrosion resistance, high level of mechanical properties (such as ultimate tensile strength (UTS), yield strength (YS), and elongation (El.)) and, finally, good castability. This last property is particularly important; it implies that solidifying metal is not prone to hot cracking, possesses excellent fluidity in molten state, and minimal shrinkage porosity. It is because of excellent castability that AlSi casting alloys have retained their leading role among all other casting alloy compositions during the last 60 years,. Obviously, this situation is not normal as it seriously impedes further development of aluminum alloy shape castings. Evidently, there are two principal ways to approach this important and old problem: 1. Casting technology improvement and development of principally new technological processes that would ensure a high quality of castings made from alloys with low castability. 2. Development of new casting alloy compositions that would combine excellent level of Properties with good castability using traditional approaches (e.g., sand casting, permanent mold casting, etc.). Today there is no doubt that the automotive industry is the most important consumer of aluminum alloy shape castings. Each year the overall volume of cast aluminum in automotive technologies grows steadily. This is especially true during the last 10 years, when the production of aluminum cars started and the number of aluminumintensive vehicles grew rapidly. Such details as cylinder blocks, pistons, other engine parts, frames, and covers of different devices under the hood are traditionally cast from aluminum now. 10) A case of GDC Piston manufacture using recycled Al-Si alloy A few years ago, the author of this paper witnessed an interesting case of quality problem in foundry manufacturing Al-Si alloy pistons by GDC using ingots made out of recycled aluminium / scrap. This foundry was engaged in mass production of pistons made of several hypo-eutectic and hyper eutectic Al-Si alloys. As per the normal practice in this field, both hypo and hyper-eutectic alloys were treated with Phosphorous for refining the primary silicon particles.

All of a sudden, overnight, severe quality problems were experienced in all the piston types made from all the category of alloys. The samples taken from the treated melts after sectioning and diamond turning showed very poor primary silicon distribution and very peculiar shrinkage pattern. The flow into the die was sluggish ( indicating poor fluidity ) The problem continued for weeks. It was obvious that the problem had something in common as a first guess the quality of the metal itself. Different batches of ingot supplies were tried out with no success. The problem was analysed in depth with the help of the guidelines indicated in the chart below (Ref.13).To start with the incoming alloy ingots were studied. The spectro results showed normal values for most of the trace elements. Only Antimony ( Sb ) showed as high a value as 300 ppm (which was not in the batches supplied a few moths ago that had given good results).Sb was not even indicated in the purchase specification This higher level of Sb in the ingots had escaped the attention of both the user and supplier of ingots for a fairly long period.. A thorough review of published literature showed some light. One of the publications ( Ref.14) revealed the fact that, in the west, for the past few years Sb is used for the Permanent Modification of Eutectic Al-Si alloys for making Alloy Wheels. Sb does not fade even after several remelting operations. Sb, like Na and Sr is known is known to counter the action of Phosphorous and even more severely. A visit to the recycling plant making the ingots revealed that they had imported a very large tonnage of Alloy Wheel scrap and that was infact the major input material It is fortunate that that both the parties had spectrometers that they could detect the trace elements. The input of alloy wheels was stopped and the problem vanished for ever. Subsequently, the foundry made a spiral fluidity test piece and each melt was tested. Slightest problem in the melt quality was being reflected in this test and it turned out to be a useful tool for the shop floor personnel.

Castability process relevant parameters ( Ref.13 )

The ingots already containing Sb traces were treated with Ca to bring down the Sb level (as per the recommendation in Ref.14) to below 10ppm. The melt was further treated with Calcium Remover to reduce the Ca to below the permissible level. 11) Final Remarks Foundry industry is set for major changes in the next one decade. Gravity die casters have a very big role to play.It is said that Foundry is a very old Art and a very young science. More and more of scientific inputs are needed and are coming about at a faster rate.. Today, most foundries are managed by non- foundrymen and there is a

need to strengthen the foundry education in India. Remember the first two rules of Prof.Campbell ( Ref.10) 1) Start with good quality melt. Metal Cleanliness is important not only in terms of oxide inclusions but also in terms of Trace Elements Contamination (Cleanliness is next to Godliness applies to melt quality as well ) . 2) Avoid turbulent entrainment of the surface film on the liquid. Foundries however small they may be, must have in-house R&D. Remember the quote below. Research is not practical; niether are babies. They are costly, noisy, dirty, and have no practical values. They net no return on the investment for 20 years, and even then they may be a liability rather then an asset. There are many reasons for not having babies and for not doing research. The results of yielding to those superficial reasons are the same in both cases dim and declining future climaxed by extinction. ------------ H.W.Lownie, Foundry Mar.1961

References
1) Antony, P. Clark , Cast-Tec, Ltd., Ontario A new Development in ferrous Permanent Mold Casting, Modern casting, June 1982. 2) Bates, C.E. Profit Potential in Permanent Mould Iron Castings. , Foundry, V 100, P 49 , ( Nov. 1972 ). 3) Francis, J.L. Gravity Die Casting of Cast Iron, Foundry trade Journal , V 118 , P 443 , ( Apr. 1965 ). 4) Mc Clelland, H.U. Grey Iron Permanent Moulding , Modern Casting , V 35 , P 68 ( Apr. 1959 ). 5) ------------- A quick picture of the Eaton Permanent Mould process for production of grey iron castings , A Booklet published by Eaton Corporation , Mitchigan , USA. 6) Fisher, T.P. The Technology of Gravity Die casting , A Text Book , published by George Newnes Ltd., First Edition , 1967. 7) --------, Cast Tec Ltd., Ontario Producing As-cast ferrous Permanent Mold castings , Modern casting , May 1989 ( special GIFA issue ). 8) Wu shenqing , Li Jun,

Ceramic Short Fiber Reinforced Al-Si Alloy Composite Piston For Automobiles Engines in China. Transactions of 6oth Institute of Indian Foundrymen , Bangalore, India , Mar.2012 9) J.Campbell Text Book - Castings 2nd Edition , Elsevier , 2003

10) J,Campbell Castings Practice : The 10 rules for good castings , Elsevier , 2004 11) J.Campbell The Bifilm Concept: Prospects of defect free castings Presented at 68 th World Foundry Congress , Chennai, India , 2008. 12) Vadim S. Zolotorevsky etal Casting Aluminium Alloys Book , Moscow , Pittsburg , 2007 13) O.Bouska THE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT CASTING PARAMETERS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FLOWABILITY, MOULD FILLING CAPACITY AND COOLING CONDITIONS OF Al-Si ALLOYS Scientific paper AMES UDC:669.715782-147:621.744.3=20 14) P.V.Bonsignore, E.J.Danels Antimony in Aluminium Scrap , P28, Modern Casting , May 1991