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Automotive Water Passage Tooling &


Equipment Inter- national (TEI), Livonia, Mich., produced this 4-lb. aluminum prototype for Honda using tooling machined from urethane resin board. The 15 x 6 x 5-in. component has thin walls and required intricate cores (see diagram). “T e objective of this water passage


casting was to integrate several existing parts to save weight and cost for a new engine program,” according to Oliver Johnson, vice president, TEI. Honda contracted TEI to fi nalize the design, then cast, machine and assemble the part. Honda produced a rough CAD model to


quickly communicate the intent of what its engineers were seeking in the shortest possible timeframe. TEI took that data and refined the component design to make it suitable for manufacture as a sand casting. “The key to time compression on this proj- ect was having all the CAE tasks carried out by the same engineer in parallel,” Johnson said. “So product design, core package design and solidi- fication modeling all were done by the same person iterating back and forth until a suitable casting design was achieved.”


TEI used solidification modeling software to perform rapid simulations and evaluate multiple process scenarios. “T e resulting casting had 3mm wall


thicknesses and fi ve complex internal cores,” Johnson said. TEI produced the cope, drag and corebox tooling on a tight turnaround by CNC machining urethane resin board. T e fi rst casting was made by the low pressure sand pro- cess 17 days from the start of the job. “In parallel, machining fi xtures and 5-axis machining programs were developed so the fi rst cast parts were immediately used as machining try out samples,” Johnson said. “Fixtures were also developed to enable the steel tubes and sealing caps to be assembled into the machined casting.” Following fi nal checks including leak testing to 30 psi, the part was ready to head into full tilt-pour


production.


Shown are the fi ve complex internal cores for this part assembled in the drag.


April 2014 MODERN CASTING | 31


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