Metal Penetration in Additively Manufactured Venting Slots for Low-Pressure Die Casting

Abstract

Venting of excess gas and air in casting moulds is of critical importance to avoid defects such as misruns and porosities. Additive manufacturing give mould designers a possibility to make venting slots in large areas and geometrically complex mould sections. The venting slots must be wide enough to allow air to escape, but narrow enough to restrict metal flowing into the venting slots. In this paper, an experiment was conducted to identify which process parameters cause metal penetration in venting slots in low-pressure die casting (LPDC). Parameters having the largest influence on the degree of penetration is found to be filling pressure and slot width. For a typical LPDC process a slot width of 0.14 mm is recommended.