Manufacturing process and equipment for parts made of aluminum alloys for vehicles and white goods, and parts obtained therefrom

Abstract

A plant and a process are disclosed for producing components made of an aluminum alloy for vehicles and white goods, through the steps of: providing thixotropic billets made of an aluminum alloy; sizing the billets depending on a ratio between weight and size of the component to be produced, thereby obtaining crop ends of material; heating the crop ends in a range of temperatures during which both a solid phase and a liquid phase coexist with a prevalence in the solid phase (more than 50%) in heating means (5); loading, through loading means (9), the crop ends in an injecting vessel made of non-magnetic steel for further workings; removing, through scalping devices, an external part of the crop ends that has become cooled when passing from the heating means (5) to the loading means (9); firstly injecting the crop ends through a press; secondly injecting the crop ends through the press in 18 milliseconds by using a closed-loop control system and increasing the injection unit power with respect to a closing unit of the press; thirdly injecting the crop ends by coining the finished part in order to remove all porosities; extracting the molding through extracting means (13); depositing the molding onto a conveyor belt (15); and controlling a quality of the obtained molding, the molding being then sent to downstream mechanical workings and / or an heat treatment.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to a manufacturing process and equipment for parts made of aluminum alloys for vehicles and large household appliances, and said parts obtained by said process and equipment. Background technique [0002] In the field of components made of aluminum alloys for vehicles, such processes and apparatus are disclosed in WO-A-02081125, WO-A-2007004241 and the present invention is an improvement on these disclosures. In fact, the processes and equipment disclosed in WO-A-02081125, WO-A-2007004241 are only suitable for the production of small parts for vehicles and with large amounts of thixotropic aluminum, fully satisfactory parts cannot be obtained. In addition, these processes use liquid separating agents, the disposal of which has a negative impact on environmental levels. Contents of the invention [0003] The object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned existing problems by providing parts made of alumi...

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