Archives of Foundry Engineering

Abstract

A measuring system was developed for the measurement of ejector forces in the die casting process. When selecting the sensor technology, particular care was taken to ensure that measurements can be taken with a high sampling rate so that the fast-running ejection process can be recorded. For this reason, the system uses piezoelectric force sensors which measure the forces directly at the individual ejector pins. In this way, depending on the number of sensors, it is possible to determine both the individual ejector forces and the total ejector force. The system is expandable and adaptable with regard to the number and position of the sensors and can also be applied to real HPDC components. Automatic triggering of the measurements is also possible. In addition to the measuring system, a device and a method for in-situ calibration of the sensors have also been developed. To test the measuring system, casting experiments were carried out with a real aluminium HPDC aluminium component. The experiments showed that it is possible to measure the ejector forces with sufficient sampling rate and also to observe the process steps of filling, intensification and die opening by means of ejector forces. Experimental setup serves as a basis for future investigations regarding the influencing parameters on the ejection process.