Ordliste
High pressure die casting — definition
A casting process in which molten metal is injected into a steel die under high pressure and solidifies within seconds.
The melt is injected into the die under high pressure and the cavity fills in milliseconds. The method delivers thin walls, complex geometry, a fine surface and very high repeatability, with cycle times from seconds to tens of seconds.
The price of that speed is entrapped gas: the fill is so fast that some air travels into the section with the metal. This is why high pressure die castings normally cannot be heat treated — during solution treatment the gas expands and raises blisters.
Tooling costs more than for gravity die casting, so the method needs series of some thousands of parts per year or per order to pay off.