Role of Metal Quality and Porosity Formation in Low Pressure Die Casting of A356: Experimental Observations

Porosity is one of the major problems in casting operations and there are several discussions in the literature about the porosity formation in aluminum castings. Bifilms are the defects that are introduced into the melt by turbulence. They can be detected with reduced pressure test and presented numerically by measuring bifilm index. The measure of bifilm index is the sum of total oxide length given in millimeters from the cross-section of reduced pressure test sample solidified under 0.01 MPa. In this work, low pressure die casting (LPDC) unit was built in an attempt to enhance the producibility rate. The unit consists of a pump housing that was placed inside the melt in the melting furnace where the pressure was applied instead of the whole melt surface. It was observed that the melt quality of A356 alloy was deteriorated over time which had led to higher porosity. This was attributed to the increased oxide thickness of the bifilm by the consumption of air in between the folded oxides. A relationship was found between bifilm index and pore formation.