Anviloy Die Hardfacing Development for Aluminum Die Casting Heat Checking Resistance

 

Aluminum die casting (ADC) is widely used in high volume automotive and marine applications. It involves filling a shot chamber with molten material and then rapidly injecting it at 80 to 4500 ton die pressure based on machine casting feature requirements. Resistance to thermal fatigue cracking (heat checking) and aluminum soldering has been a major challenge with conventional die steels such as H13. Loss of part dimensional accuracy and surface integrity from carbonaceous buildup, aluminum soldering, and heat checking are common forms of die failure. Tungsten based materials, such as Anviloy are attractive due to their dramatically increased service lives. Anvilloy was historically only available as solid inserts or for manual gas tungsten arc repair using rod form.  Due to advances in wire drawing technology, there are new avenues for Anviloy hardfacing  The primary focus of this project is developing hot-wire (laser and arc) directed energy deposition (DED) additive manufacturing (AM) for building die features and / or repair of H13 dies.  Multi-pass DED Anviloy deposits will be developed using a temperbead strategy to minimze the need for H13 heat treatment after hardfacing. The relationship of heat input & hot wire (HW) parameters, deposit area, bead shape, and dilution to service properties will be evaluated determine preferred DED hardfacing build procedures. Once optimum parameters are developed, the project will use robotic (laser and / or arc) hot wire DED AM systems to build die features and /or repair dies for in-plant trials. The economic metrics for hot wire DED AM process for building and repairing die features will be established.

 

Industry Sponsor: Astaras

Faculty: Dennis Harwig (OSU)

Graduate Student: Jerry Kovacich

Industry Contact: Steve Fyffe