In recent years, driven by leading automotive companies like Tesla, integrated die casting for car bodies has become a clear trend. This technology simplifies the car body manufacturing process, integrates the supply chain, and has become a disruptive innovation in automotive manufacturing, showcasing significant economic benefits.

Die casting is a method where liquid or semi-liquid metal is injected into a mold cavity at high pressure and speed, forming and solidifying under pressure to produce cast parts. In high-pressure die casting, its core features are high-speed filling, high-temperature filling, and high-pressure filling. Controlling mold temperature is crucial during die casting production. Excessive mold temperature can cause thermal imbalance, leading to defects such as porosity, shrinkage, cold shuts, flow marks, and die sticking on the surface of castings, thus affecting product quality. These issues may arise due to various factors, including improper mold design, incorrect process parameters, and insufficient quality control of the alloy melt. Optimizing mold design is key to addressing these problems.

Common die casting issues such as shrinkage, die sticking, and cold cracking are often related to mold temperature. 3D printing can produce molds with complex conformal cooling channels, which can effectively control mold temperatures in defect-prone areas, improving product quality. Traditional die casting molds, limited by machining methods, often have internal cooling channels that are straight through holes, which can cause thermal imbalance during casting and cooling, leading to a series of casting issues. However, with 3D printing, metal molds can be manufactured integrally through computer software modeling, allowing for the production of conformal cooling channel inserts. This not only solves the issue of uneven temperature control in deep cavity inserts but also significantly reduces the cooling time of inserts such as splitter cones, shortening the casting cycle and improving casting quality while enhancing production efficiency.

In addition, high-performance 3D-printed hot-work mold materials are essential. LAMOTEK has independently developed a new generation of 3D-printed hot-work mold material specifically for the die casting industry: LAMO-H480. This material features high toughness, excellent tempering resistance, superior resistance to surface cracking, high aluminum melt corrosion resistance, fatigue resistance, corrosion resistance, and wear resistance. Compared to traditional 3D-printed materials and die casting mold steels, LAMO-H480 compensates for material performance deficiencies, enhancing mold corrosion resistance and significantly extending the lifespan of die casting molds. It has already been successfully applied to high-pressure die casting projects for leading automotive clients.

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