| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Part Name | Farm Machinery Castings |
| Material | AISi6Cu4Zn |
| Size | 414× 414 × 40 mm |
| Weight | 3000g |
| Process | Gravity casting + CNC Machining |
| Surface Finish | Blasting |
| Min. Thickness | 4mm |
| Dimensional Tolerances | ISO 8062-CT8 |
| Surface Roughness | Ra 6.3µm |
| Application | Agricultural machinery |
| Certification | IATF 16949-2016 |
This is a customized agricultural machinery component, applied in equipment such as corn harvesters and tractors.
1. Product Standards & Requirements: Material: AISi6Cu4Zn; Dimensional tolerance class: ISO 8062-CT8; Minimum dimensional tolerance: ±0.1 mm; Free from any visible defects, Surface roughness: Ra6.3µm; PPAP approval must be completed and passed before mass production.
2. Product Challenges: The component features a completely rotational structure, which places high demands on the gating system design. During machining, fixtures cannot achieve physical error-proofing. Additionally, the part contains multiple tubular holes, which are prone to forming air stagnation zones.
The finished product must not only demonstrate excellent machining accuracy and surface finish, but also provide high thermal conductivity, corrosion resistance, lightweight design, and ease of installation and maintenance. Overall, this project presents a certain level of difficulty, posing a comprehensive test of our mold design capability, machining capability, quality control, and delivery performance.
1. Following the Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) process, we established a cross-functional project development team composed of a mold designer, casting engineer, machining engineer, measurement engineer, quality engineer, and sales engineer, ensuring a quality-centered approach throughout the product development cycle.
2. Through DFM (Design for Manufacturability) analysis, we optimized certain structural details to enhance manufacturability and established mutually recognized technical specifications and quality standards with the customer.
3. Based on the material characteristics and the core design elements of the product, considering technical feasibility, quality stability, and cost control, we finalized the process route of high-pressure die casting + CNC machining.
4. Technical engineers conducted mold scheme reviews, mold design and simulation, and mold flow analysis to predict and optimize various challenges and process parameters, providing the customer with a die-casting simulation analysis report.
5. In the subsequent practical stages, we gradually verified the solution, identified issues, and implemented improvements as follows:
• Issue: X-ray inspection after mold trials revealed local porosity exceeding acceptable limits.
- Solution: Improved the gating and riser design and optimized the casting parameters to eliminate the issue.
• Issue: Due to the fully rotational structure, fixtures could not physically prevent incorrect orientation during machining.
- Solution: Enhanced the work instruction documentation to ensure clear and accurate descriptions and added directional arrow markings on the casting blanks to guide correct positioning.
A complete inspection process was implemented, including first article inspection, in-process inspection, and final inspection before shipment, with full data recording and traceability to ensure all quality data are verifiable.
Meanwhile, during development, we established standardized documentation such as FMEA, SPC, MSA, and Process Control Plans, ultimately completing the PPAP documentation, which was approved by the customer.
The finished aluminum die-cast farm machinery castings demonstrates excellent performance and precision, along with outstanding thermal conductivity, corrosion resistance, lightweight construction, and protective properties. It is also easy to install and maintain. The final product fully achieved the customer’s design goals, providing a higher-performance and more reliable solution for similar component designs.
Mould making→Gravity Casting→Cutting the sprue and riser→Deburring→CNC Machining→Packaging & inspection
At 414×414×40mm and 3kg, this part exceeds the practical size range for most HPDC machines and would require an extremely large and expensive die. Gravity casting fills the mold using only the metal's weight, making it well-suited for large, relatively flat parts like this presumed transmission or gearbox cover. It also produces denser, lower-porosity castings than HPDC on thick-walled sections, which is important for a structural component bearing the mechanical loads of agricultural powertrain operation. The AISi6Cu4Zn alloy specified is also better suited to gravity casting than to HPDC.
AISi6Cu4Zn is an aluminum alloy with moderate silicon content for good castability, copper for increased strength and hardness, and zinc for additional strength contribution. For a gearbox or transmission cover on farm machinery, the copper content provides the higher yield strength needed to resist the bolt preload forces that clamp the cover to the housing, plus the dynamic loads transmitted through the cover during field operation. It also offers better machinability than pure silicon alloys, which is relevant given the multiple tubular hole features requiring precise CNC machining on this part.
A perfectly round part (414×414mm) has no asymmetric geometric feature that a fixture can use to mechanically prevent incorrect orientation—any angular rotation of the blank in the fixture produces an identical contact footprint, so the fixture cannot physically reject a wrongly oriented part the way it can for an asymmetric geometry. If the blank is placed at the wrong rotational position, machined holes, faces, and features will be angular offset from their intended positions—producing a scrapped part that may not be detected until final inspection. The solution of marking directional arrows on the casting blank transfers the error-proofing to visual operator verification rather than fixture geometry.
Tubular holes are formed by cylindrical core pins positioned within the mold cavity. As molten metal rises around these pins during gravity filling, air trapped inside the tubular zone between the pin and the advancing metal front cannot escape easily—particularly at the blind end of the tube. This trapped air creates a back-pressure that slows metal advance and, if not properly vented, remains as a gas void when the metal solidifies. The solution requires careful riser and vent placement specifically designed to provide an escape path for air from each tubular zone as the metal level rises past it.
The extremely shallow depth (40mm) relative to the large plan area (414×414mm) means the metal must spread laterally across a wide, thin cavity before it has time to build sufficient hydrostatic head to fill peripheral features. Poor gate placement causes the metal to arrive at distant points already cooled and partially solidified, creating cold shuts at the far edges. The rotational symmetry also means the gate and riser system must distribute metal uniformly in all radial directions simultaneously—an inherently demanding design requirement that distinguishes this part from simpler rectangular or irregular geometries where directional filling strategies are more straightforward.
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