Mould Design Process in High Pressure Die Casting Supported by Virtual Prototyping

High Pressure Die Casting is a widely used industrial process to manufacture complex-shaped product in light alloys. Virtual prototyping techniques, especially numeric based simulations of the casting process, evaluates the die filling process and helps faster optimization of the gating system. However, no formalised method to design an optimal gating system using virtual prototype tools is available yet and the majority of the studies aim to optimise existing geometries. The purpose of this work is focused on new approach to easily define the entire geometry of the mould without starting from an existing solution. The paper presents a four step approach which allows optimal mould and gating system to be designed taking advantage of simulation tools. Rather than optimizing the geometries of predefined designs by running attempt trials, the approach defines a procedure to position cavities, gating systems and determine the whole mould geometry. The design of a 6-cavity mould for gas cooking burners is reported as a test case for the validation of the method. The reached quality of the mould design has been assessed using metallographic analyses of the cast products.