If you are planning on fabricating metal products through die casting, you should hire an experienced designer for casting design. In general, creating the best casting for specific applications can be challenging. If the design is not reliable, you will spend more money, and the fabrication process can become unnecessarily complicated. Here are essential tips to consider if you would like to be involved in designing the casting.
Opt for Uniform Wall Thickness
When designing your casting, you should plan on creating a uniform wall. In simple terms, the casting should not have walls with different degrees of thickness. The choice to create uniform walls will ensure better metal flow during fabrication, and the casting will be filled better, improving the quality of your products. Also, you should note that uniform walls will not experience unusual dimensional variations which are caused by different cooling rates of molten metal.
Minimise the Sharp Corners
The corners of your casting should not be sharp. If possible, both the inside and outside corners should be as large as possible. If your casting has gentler fillet radii or inside corners, the casting will be filled more efficiently with metal during fabrication. As a result, the final product will have a better quality. In addition, if the outside corners or corner radii are smoother, the cast die will provide longer service. Dice tend to degrade and wear out forces if they have sharp corners.
Choose Tapered Walls
You should plan on incorporating tapered walls in your casting design. The tapering or the draft is critical in die casting. This property ensures that the created metal product can be removed from the die after fabrication. The concept is similar to the design of a muffin tin. The tapered walls of the muffin tin allow the baked good to be removed with ease. Ideally, there should be more taper on the inside walls in your casting design. This is beneficial because metal shrinks as it cools. Therefore, the formed metal can be difficult to remove. The extra draft allows for easier removal.
Eliminate Undercuts
Undercuts in fabrication are recessed surfaces in otherwise smooth structures. The general geometry of an undercut does not allow for its inclusion in a standard die cast. If you want to include this feature, you must have a moving member in the die called a slide. This type of special casting will be more expensive, and it will require more time for fabrication. Therefore, where possible, you should avoid undercuts.
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