Prototyping of a High Pressure Die Cast Al-Si Alloy Using Plaster Mold Casting to Replicate Corresponding Mechanical Properties

Prototyping prior high pressure die casting (HPDC) is used for product/mold design optimization. Plaster mold casting is a cost-efficient prototyping technique providing good surface quality and dimension accuracy, similar to HPDC components. However, the corresponding mechanical properties of a component produced with these two methods are diverging significantly, mainly due to differences in the cooling rate. This work presents a procedure to optimize the plaster mold casting for prototyping to replicate mechanical properties of a commonly used Al-Si alloy (A380). Two commercial alloys with compositions close to the A380 alloy (A356.0 and A360.2) were used. Yield strength was considered as the main design criteria, thus the target mechanical property. Tensile testing results showed that with an optimized T6 heat treatment, not only the yield strength, but also ultimate tensile strength and elongation correspond well to the properties in the HPDC component.