Die Therm Engineering provides thermal process control solutions through proprietary, integrated hardware and software. The Die Therm System provides the capability for comprehensive thermal control. This is the first time that such control is available in an easy-to-use system and is the next generation of process control. Implementation of the Die Therm System can result in significant benefits in multiple aspects of the die casting process.
Those companies that seize this opportunity will be positioned to be market leaders.
Die casting will never be the same again.
The Thermal Issue
In order of importance, the three critical control factors in the die casting process are:
- Thermal –The productivity, quality, and dimensional accuracy of the casting process are all driven by thermal relationships.
- Injection – High pressure die casting is unique among casting processes in that the liquid metal is forcefully injected at high injection velocity. Control of the injection process is important to the casting quality.
- Timing – The casting machine cycling primarily determines the timing of the process. Timing is important to the efficiency, and hence financial productivity, of the process.
Injection and timing have been addressed and continue to be addressed through myriad tools, applications, and process improvements. As such, process variation due to these factors has been significantly reduced. Further investment in such technologies results in continually diminishing benefits.
The thermal aspect of the die casting process has been only minimally addressed:
- Thermocouples have significant problems with design integration, failure, and setup; further, they measure only discrete points in the die where the thermocouples are located
- Simulation software is a valuable tool, but has its issues and, further, it provides no thermal control
- Thermal imaging provides informative data, but the data is only from static points in a continually changing process, and it also provides no actual thermal control
In most die casting processes, thermal control is provided by a cooling system. The typical situation consists of start-up shots to heat the die, after which the cooling system is turned on, graphically portrayed as follows:
The net result of the above on the die casting process is significant process variation due to significantly varying thermal conditions. This variation is exacerbated by the stop and start nature of many die casters’ processes.
Statistical studies performed by Die Therm at existing customers showed that 80-90% of existing process variation was thermal in nature. We are confident that this is not atypical.