Experimental Investigation of Air Entrapment Effects in Die Casting

Injection Chambers
R. Zamora1, J. Sanes1, F. Faura1, J. Lpez1, J. Hernndez2
1

Dept. de Ingeniera de Materiales y Fabricacin, ETS de Ingeniera Industrial, Universidad Politcnica de

Cartagena, c/ Doctor Fleming s/n, E-30202 Cartagena, Spain.
URL: www.upct.es
e-mail:
rosendo.zamora@upct.es, pepe.sanes@upct.es,
felix.faura@upct.es, joaquin.lopez@upct.es
2

Dept. de Mecnica, ETS de Ingenieros Industriales, UNED, Ciudad Universitaria, E-28040 Madrid, Spain.
URL: www.uned.es
e-mail:
jhernandez@ind.uned.es

ABSTRACT: The influence of the maximum plunger speed on the occurrence of different air entrapment
mechanisms during the slow injection stage in horizontal die casting injection chambers is investigated
experimentally. The experiments were carried out for different operating conditions in a real high-pressure die
casting machine. In order to identify the different zones in the injection chamber where, depending on the
operating conditions, the air may be trapped, the injection process was stopped at the end of the slow stage.
Porosity was measured in different regions of the casting obtained with different plunger speeds and initial
filling fractions. Prevailing spatial distributions of trapped air for given operating conditions in some casting
cuts are shown.
Key words: High-pressure die casting, porosity, air entrapment mechanisms, injection chamber.

1 INTRODUCTION
High-pressure die casting using machines with
horizontal cold chambers (currently the most
common process for manufacturing near-net shape
cast components) allows very high production rates
with close dimensional tolerance and a good surface
finish. A description of the injection process in a
machine of this type and of the stages into which
this process is usually divided can be found in a
companion paper (Zamora et al. [1]). The amount of
trapped air during the initial slow injection stage
may represent a considerable contribution to the
total mass of trapped air which gives rise to porosity
in the manufactured part. This is particularly so
when inappropriate operating parameters are used
during injection. Previous investigations aimed at
determining adequate values of these parameters
were mostly based either on analytical [2,3] or
numerical [4,5,6] approaches, or on experiments
carried out using water as the working fluid [7,8].
However, there are few experimental studies in real
casting machines [9,10,11], and those that exist do
not especially focus on the slow injection stage.

Air entrapment mechanisms in the injection chamber

are related to the behavior of the surface wave of
molten metal caused by the plunger motion. As
explained by Tszeng and Chu [2], if the plunger
reaches a speed higher than a certain optimum value,
the wave will reflect against the chamber ceiling and
its forward face might roll over, causing air
entrapment, as shown in figure 1(a). On the other
hand, if the plunger speed does not reach this
optimum value, the wave might reflect against the
end wall of the chamber and trap air in front of the
plunger and along the chamber ceiling, as shown in
figure 1(b). The optimum maximum plunger speed
has been studied experimentally in a real die casting
machine, as described in the mentioned companion
paper [1]. Obviously, the dynamics of the free
surface of molten metal and air entrapment effects
also depend on the plunger acceleration law.
The main objective of this work was to investigate
experimentally, in a die casting machine and real
operating conditions, and for a given plunger
acceleration law, the influence of the maximum
plunger speed during the slow injection stage on the
spatial distribution of entrapped air at the end of this
stage. Experiments involving different initial filling

fractions and different maximum plunger speeds

were carried out. In order to analyze the distribution
of entrapped air in the chamber during the slow
stage, the injection shot finished when the chamber
was completely filled with metal. The resulting
castings were transversally divided into a number of
equally sized parts. It was expected that the analysis
of the results would allow us to relate the measured
porosity distributions to the different air entrapment
mechanisms that may occur for operating conditions
far from the optimal.

(a)

Casting
Pouring hole
Molten metal

Plunger motion
Injection chamber

Die Halves

Fig. 2. Schematic representation of the injection chamber at the

end of the injection shot.

to an initial filling fraction f = 25.2 %. The castings

for which the measured plunger speed law failed to
reproduce the desired law closely enough, or those
with an excessive error in weight, were discarded
using the same criteria as in [1].

(b)
Fig. 1. Typical free surface profiles when the plunger speed is
(a) higher and (b) lower than the optimal speed.

2 EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE
2.1 Equipment and instrumentation
The die casting machine, the instrumentation and the
composition of the aluminum alloy used in the
experiments are described in a companion paper [1].
The measurement of porosity in the castings was
carried out using the classic Archimedes method.
2.2 Description of experiments
As already mentioned, in all the experiments the
injection shot was stopped when the chamber was
almost completely filled, except for the space
occupied by the trapped air (the final pressure in the
chamber was approximately the same in all the
experiments). Figure 2 shows a schematic
representation of the injection chamber at this
instant.
The same series of manufactured castings described
in [1] were analyzed in the present work. Figure 3
shows the castings of different series corresponding

Fig. 3. Casting series corresponding to an initial filling fraction

of 25.2 %.

In order to analyze the porosity distribution, each

casting was divided into a number of equally sized
parts, depending on the size of the casting. For a
given chamber, this size is obviously determined by
the initial filling fraction. For the three filling
fractions, for which results are presented below, the
castings were divided into two (for f = 25.2 %) and
three parts (for f = 37.4 % and 50 %), as can be seen
in figure 4, corresponding to the zones close to the
plunger and to the chamber end wall, and, in the
latter case, also to the middle zone. Possible pores
existing at the surface of any part were covered with
adhesive plastic tape.

Fig. 4. Division of castings into parts in order to measure

porosity.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

8.0
f = 25.2 %

A
B

Porosity (%)

6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

0.7

0.8

0.9

8.0
A
B
C

f = 37.4 %

Porosity (%)

6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
0.1
8.0

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5
A
B
C

f = 50 %

Porosity (%)

Figure 5 shows some of the results obtained for the

mean value of the porosity measured and the 95 %
confidence interval (based on a Student's t
distribution) in each part of the casting as a function
of the maximum plunger speed, for three different
initial filling fractions and a 50 mm diameter
chamber. The porosity in each part was calculated as
(0-p)/0, where 0 is the alloy density (2.68 g cm-3)
and p is the part density. It is worth noting that the
cut of the casting into various parts may cause the
division of existing air cavities, which in turn makes
the uncertainty interval for the porosity of each part
to be higher than that for the total casting porosity.
It can be observed from figure 5 that the measured
porosity tends to be higher in the middle sections of
the chamber or near the plunger for low plunger
speeds, whereas for high plunger speeds it tends to
be accumulated in the sections close to the end wall.
Notice that the porosity measured in part A, which is
adjacent to the chamber end wall, is low and roughly
constant for low plunger speeds and tends to
increase with plunger speed for sufficiently high
values of this speed. This increase can be attributed
to the effects of wave breaking caused by the impact
of molten metal against the chamber ceiling. For
parts B and C, porosity variations with plunger
speed are less pronounced and, in general, nonmonotonic. A flow pattern similar to that of figure
1(b) is expected to be responsible for the relatively
high porosity level in parts B and C at moderately
low plunger speeds, for which porosity in part A is
low.
Figure 6 shows photographs of longitudinal sections
of two castings obtained with f =37.4 % and two
plunger speeds lower and higher, respectively, than
the optimal, and figures 7 and 8 show a transversal
X-ray photograph and a standard photograph,
respectively, of two different castings obtained for f
= 50 % and a high plunger speed. In the case of
figure 8, the plunger was stopped when the molten
metal filled the runner. The locations of the zones of
trapped air in all these figures are consistent with the
results of figure 5.

6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6
-1

Plunger speed (m s )

Fig. 5. Porosity measured in parts A, B and C, for initial filling

fractions of 25.2 %, 37.4 % and 50 %.

(a)

(b)

Fig. 6. Longitudinal sections of two different castings for f =

37.4 % and plunger speeds (a) lower and (b) higher than the
optimal.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Spanish
Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologa (MCYT) under grants
DPI2001-1390-C02 and PB98-0007, and the MCYT and the
European Commission under grant 1FD97-2333. We would
also like to thank Mr. Pedro Belmonte for assisting with the
experiments, and to Mr. Sebastin Gallardo for his advice and
help in the arrangement of the experimental set-up.
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Fig. 7. X-ray photograph of a casting obtained for f = 50 % and
a high plunger speed.

1.

2.
3.
4.
5.

Fig. 8. Photograph of a casting obtained for f = 50 % and a

high plunger speed.

4 CONCLUSIONS
Experiments in a real high-pressure die casting
machine were conducted to investigate the
dependence of the spatial distribution of trapped air
in the molten metal during the slow injection stage
on the maximum plunger speed. Despite the
limitations of the injection control system to
reproduce accurately the desired plunger motion law
and final chamber pressure, the uncertainties
introduced by the manual pouring of molten metal
and shrinkage effects, the results for porosity
distributions in different zones of the injection
chamber are consistent with the air entrapment
mechanisms that are expected to occur for the
corresponding plunger speed ranges. In future
studies, we will try to overcome the mentioned
limitations, and the influence of the plunger
acceleration law will be studied.

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