The cylinder block is the heart of the engine, so its casting quality is critical, and if it is well controlled, it can avoid or reduce the risk of the car's heart hitting.
First, the casting process of aluminum castings for automobile cylinder blocks
The cylinder block is the heart of the engine, so its casting quality is the key. Controlling it well can avoid or reduce the risk of the car's "heart strike". The cylinder block is both the most complex part in the engine. The advantage of using cast aluminum instead of cast iron to make the cylinder block is that it can reduce the weight of the engine.
Early aluminum cylinder blocks generally used low-pressure casting and metal mold casting, and a small amount of sand casting was also used.
From the trend in recent years, the vast majority of manufacturers use high pressure die casting process. At present, the casting method of domestic aluminum cylinder block is still using low pressure casting process. For a long time in the past, aluminum cylinder blocks were not as widely used as aluminum cylinder heads, because the cost of aluminum cylinder blocks was higher than that of cast iron cylinder blocks, and the commonly used aluminum materials had certain performance characteristics ( e.g.) is also not as good as cast iron.
However, with the requirement of energy and environmental protection, the pursuit of lightweight vehicles has become a concept, and people have realized that it is an inevitable trend to use aluminum instead of cast iron to make cylinder blocks. At the same time, the research and manufacturing technology of aluminum materials are also constantly improving, and a batch of aluminum materials with excellent performance have been used in production.
On the other hand, the continuous advancement of aluminum casting manufacturing technology has made the cost of mass production of aluminum cylinder blocks continue to decline.
At present, the application of cast aluminum cylinder block has been extensive, and the application in modern cars has reached the stage of popularization.
Although China's automobile casting industry has not yet reached the level, some foundries have also been built, but China still mainly relies on some commonly used automobile castings, such as cylinder blocks and cylinder heads.
The production of cylinder blocks in my country has not yet been completed, but some major foundries have built larger die-casting production lines and integrated aluminum castings.
Second, high pressure casting of automotive lightweight structural components
At present, the die-casting process used in automotive aluminum alloy parts and its main products include: traditional high-pressure casting (engine cylinder block, transmission housing and other shell parts), ultra-vacuum die-casting less than 5kPa (shock tower, longitudinal beam and other body parts) Structure).
As well as variants of various die casting processes (such as ultra-low speed die casting, extrusion die casting, semi-solid die casting, etc.). With the increase of new energy components and intelligent driving vehicle components, more and more requirements are placed on the die-casting process, such as the die-casting of pure aluminum motor rotors and the welding of heat-dissipating electric control box shells.
These new demands have brought new challenges to traditional die-casting enterprises. Die-casting enterprises need to adjust their direction in time, and can convert new parts requirements into specific requirements such as die-casting process, materials, and molds, and produce qualified castings through optimization.
With the increasing demand for high density and mechanical properties of automotive parts, parts using new die casting processes such as squeeze casting and semi-solid die casting are becoming more and more popular.
The characteristics of this type of parts are that they can achieve T6 (solid solution + aging) heat treatment, the parts can reach the strength of chassis parts, and have an efficiency close to that of die casting. At present, there are products that replace traditional die casting parts in chassis bracket parts.
Compared with the traditional die-casting process, extrusion and semi-solid die-casting products need to further improve the quality stability, broaden the scope of the process, improve the cost performance of the products, and expand the supply system.
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Source: @cyanbat Author: @Joe Li
