Manufacturing Die Cast Molds via Direct Metal Deposition (DMD)

The development of a product involves several phases ¿ concept, design, prototype, testing and manufacture. Designing molds is no different than designing a product. A mold is designed to facilitate efficient production of a product to lower the cost. The context for this research is to develop a material matrix for designing molds, with desirable properties for the die casting industry using additive fabrication technology. Direct metal deposition machine is used for depositing the coating material for the die casting molds. The steel dies often fail prematurely due to metal-fatigue cracking, corrosion, erosion, oxidation, heat checking and soldering when the dies are exposed to molten metals while operating under cyclic-mechanical stresses, thermal loading, chemical corrosion and thermal fatigue. The objective of this work is to find an ¿optimal¿ mold material composition for use in the die casting industry using a direct material deposition process (DMD). DMD is a laser-based additive fabrication technology that is used to deposit metal powders over substrate material. Author: J. Mohammed (Morehead State University)