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Die Casting Defects

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Overview As in every manufacturing process, Die Castings do not always conform to a standard which is acceptable to the customer. A casting which falls into this category is defined as having a defect. The ultimate cause of defects is variances in the manufacturing process. This is why, in the same production run you can produce 970 castings which are perfectly acceptable and 30 with defects. Furthermore, there may be different defects in the same batch. To reduce or eliminate defects it is necessary to:- Correctly identify the defect Understand the possible and contributing causes Do tests to identify the root cause Make changes to the process or the tooling Set out below is a table of Die Casting defects, grouped by common characteristics, to assist with identification. This web page is a "work-in-progress". If you have castings which are good examples of these common defects, or if you have some which you cannot identify, please email us a photograph.

External Defects These defects can be seen on the surface or the edges of the casting. Use a microscope to see the fine details. Category Defect Name Gas Related Blisters Exploded Blisters Collapsed Blisters Shrinkage Related Sinks Filling Related     Cold Flow Short Fill Joints Laminations Inclusions       Flakes Die Lube Marks Surface Deposits Gate Breakout Thermal-Mechanical   Cracks Hot Tearing Die Related           Soldering Heat Checking Die Erosion Ejection Marks Scoring & Drag Marks Corrosion of die Excess Material Flash Out of Tolerance Warpage & Deformation

Internal Defects To see these defects, the casting must be broken open or dissected and polished, then magnified, or X-rayed. Category Defect Name Gas Related Gas Porosity Lubricant Entrapment Hydrogen Porosity Shrinkage Related Shrinkage Porosity Leakers Interdendritic Shrinkage Layer Porosity Filling Related     Cold Flow Laminations Joints Inclusions       Flakes Contamination Gate Breakout Thermal Contraction   Cracks Hot Tearing

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