ESMART Subtask 3.7: Design Support for Tooling Optimization. Final Report

摘要

High pressure die casting is an intrinsically efficient net shape process and improvements in energy efficiency are strongly dependent on design and process improvements that reduce scrap rates so that more of the total consumed energy goes into acceptable, usable castings. Computer simulation has become widely used within the industry but use is not universal. Further, many key design decisions must be made before the simulation can be run and expense in terms of money and time often limits the number of decision iterations that can be explored. This work continues several years of work creating simple, very fast, design tools that can assist with the early stage design decisions so that the benefits of simulation can be maximized and, more importantly, so that the chances of first shot success are maximized. First shot success and better running processes contributes to less scrap and significantly better energy utilization by the process. This new technology was predicted to result in an average energy savings of 1.83 trillion BTUs/year over a 10 year period. Current (2011) annual energy saving estimates over a ten year period, based on commercial introduction in 2012, a market penetration of 30% by 2015 is 1.89 trillion BTUs/year by 2022. Along with these energy savings, reduction of scrap and improvement in yield will result in a reduction of the environmental emissions associated with the melting and pouring of the metal which will be saved as a result of this technology. The average annual estimate of CO2 reduction per year through 2022 is 0.037 Million Metric Tons of Carbon Equivalent (MM TCE).