Ordliste
Tool life — definition
How many shots a casting tool survives before it has to be rebuilt or replaced.
Tool life is determined above all by casting temperature. The tool takes a thermal shock on every single shot, and aluminium at 680–700 degrees wears the steel far faster than zinc at 380–390.
The difference is large enough to be a commercial argument rather than a technical footnote. The German zinc die caster Adolf Föhl states a tool life of 750,000 to 2,000,000 shots for zinc tooling, and puts that at eight to ten times the life of an equivalent aluminium tool.
Because the customer owns the tool, it is the customer investment that lasts longer. On a part where both materials are technically feasible, tool life alone can decide the choice.