A top die inner wheel lip cooling structure

Abstract

This utility model relates to the field of aluminum alloy wheel hub casting molds and discloses a cooling structure for the inner wheel lip of a top mold. The structure includes a top mold body, with several independent cooling chambers spaced circumferentially along the inner wheel lip region of the top mold body. These cooling chambers are staggered with ejector pin positions on the top mold body, and extend radially along the top mold body to the outer region of the ejector pin positions, closely conforming to the cavity surface contour of the corresponding inner wheel lip. Each cooling chamber is connected to an independent inlet and outlet water pipe. This utility model significantly improves the solidification conditions of the inner wheel lip, especially in specially shaped areas, effectively reducing defects such as shrinkage cavities, porosity, and cold shuts, improving microstructure density and surface finish; promoting uniform temperature field, reducing casting stress and deformation risks; significantly shortening the solidification time of critical areas and the overall cooling cycle, accelerating production speed; and ensuring that the ejector pin function is not affected, ensuring flexible and reliable operation, thus comprehensively improving casting quality and production efficiency.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This utility model relates to the field of aluminum alloy wheel hub casting molds, and in particular to a cooling structure for the inner wheel lip of the top mold. Background Technology

[0002] In the low-pressure casting production of aluminum alloy wheels, the cooling effect of the inner lip area within the mold is crucial to the casting quality and production efficiency of the wheel. Current technologies primarily employ air cooling or a full-circle water cooling structure for this area. While air cooling is simple in structure, its cooling intensity is significantly insufficient, failing to meet the cooling requirements of high-quality wheels and easily leading to defects such as coarse grains and shrinkage porosity, while also prolonging the production cycle. The full-circle water cooling structure significantly improves cooling intensity through circulating cooling water, but its design lacks specific consideration for the specific structural characteristics of the wheel, particularly the complex shapes of the inner lip. In practical applications, due to the limitations of the mold ejector pin distribution, the water channels often cannot get close enough to the inner lip area with special shapes (such as complex concave-convex shapes, ribs, decorative patterns, etc.), resulting in the cooling water being far from the shaped surfaces requiring enhanced cooling, leading to insufficient cooling. This insufficient cooling not only affects the surface quality and internal density of the wheel's special shapes but also restricts the improvement of production efficiency, making it difficult to meet the high-quality and high-efficiency demands of modern wheel manufacturing.

[0003] Therefore, developing a novel cooling structure for the inner lip of the top mold for practical production is an urgent problem to be solved. Utility Model Content

[0004] The purpose of this invention is to address the above-mentioned problems by providing a cooling structure for the inner lip of the top mold, which allows for flexible and precise cooling to meet different cooling needs in the inner lip area, significantly improving the cooling effect, enhancing casting quality, and increasing production efficiency.

[0005] The technical solution adopted in this utility model is as follows:

[0006] A cooling structure for the inner lip of a top mold includes a top mold body. The inner lip region of the top mold body is provided with a plurality of independent cooling chambers at intervals along the circumferential direction. The cooling chambers are staggered with the ejector pin positions on the top mold body, and the cooling chambers extend radially along the top mold body to the outer region of the ejector pin positions and closely fit the cavity surface contour of the corresponding inner lip. The cooling chambers are respectively connected to independent water inlet pipes and water outlet pipes.

[0007] Preferably, each water inlet pipe is equipped with a flow regulating valve to independently control the supply flow rate of cooling water to each cooling chamber.

[0008] Preferably, the inner wall of the cooling chamber is provided with a heat dissipation structure to increase the contact heat exchange area between the cooling water and the metal substrate of the top mold body.

[0009] Preferably, the heat dissipation structure is a textured structure processed or formed on the inner wall of the cooling chamber, wherein the textured structure is a regular or irregular array of pits or a wavy surface structure.

[0010] Preferably, the heat dissipation structure is a heat dissipation fin fixedly disposed on the inner wall of the cooling chamber, and the heat dissipation fin is a thin sheet structure fixedly connected to the top mold body and extending into the cooling water.

[0011] Preferably, the cooling chamber is connected to two inlet pipes and two outlet pipes respectively, forming a double-inlet and double-outlet cooling water path, so as to greatly increase the flow rate and velocity of the cooling water flowing through the area.

[0012] The beneficial effects of this utility model are as follows:

[0013] This invention provides a novel zoned cooling structure for low-pressure casting molds, significantly improving the cooling efficiency of the inner lip area of ​​aluminum alloy wheel hubs. It solves the problem of insufficient cooling in specially shaped areas caused by the obstruction of push rods in existing full-circle water cooling systems, achieving precise directional cooling for complex shapes (such as concave-convex shapes, ribs, and textures), and offering strong adaptability. The cooling intensity of each cooling chamber can be precisely controlled via a flow regulating valve on the inlet pipe, allowing for enhanced cooling of thick-walled or critical areas. The concave-convex shape on the inner wall of the cooling chambers greatly increases the heat exchange area and turbulence effect, significantly improving heat exchange efficiency. For heavy-duty or thick-walled wheel hubs, a dual-inlet, dual-outlet cooling water circuit design is adopted, multiplying the cooling water flow rate and velocity to meet extreme cooling demands. This invention significantly improves the solidification conditions of the inner lip, especially in specially shaped areas, effectively reducing defects such as shrinkage cavities, porosity, and cold shuts, and improving the density and surface finish of the microstructure; it promotes uniform temperature field, reduces casting stress and deformation risk; it significantly shortens the solidification time of key areas and the overall cooling cycle, accelerating the production cycle; at the same time, it ensures that the ejector pin function is not affected, and the operation is flexible and reliable, comprehensively improving casting quality and production efficiency. Attached Figure Description

[0014] The present invention will now be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments.

[0015] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the structure of this utility model.

[0016] Figure 2 This is a top view of the top mold body.

[0017] In the diagram: 10--Top mold body; 11--Top rod position; 20--Cooling chamber; 21--Water inlet pipe; 22--Water outlet pipe; 23--Flow regulating valve; 24--Heat dissipation structure; 241--Concave-convex structure; 242--Heat dissipation fins. Detailed Implementation

[0018] The technical solutions of the present utility model will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings of the embodiments of the present utility model. Obviously, the described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present utility model, and not all embodiments.

[0019] like Figure 1-2 As shown, a cooling structure for the inner lip of a top mold includes a top mold body 10. Several independent cooling chambers 20 are spaced circumferentially along the inner lip region of the top mold body 10. These cooling chambers 20 are staggered with ejector pin positions 11 on the top mold body 10, and extend radially along the top mold body 10 to the outer region of the ejector pin positions 11, closely conforming to the contour of the cavity surface corresponding to the inner lip. Each cooling chamber is connected to an independent inlet pipe 21 and outlet pipe 22, thereby forming several independent cooling zones on the top mold body 10 that effectively avoid the ejector pin positions 11. In use, the inlet pipe 21 connects to a cooling water source to supply cooling water to the cooling chambers 20, and the inner lip region of the top mold body 10 is precisely and efficiently cooled through each independent cooling zone. This embodiment ensures that the normal installation, movement, and function of the ejector pins are not affected, allowing the cooling water flow to efficiently cool surfaces directly opposite or adjacent to the specially shaped surfaces. This significantly improves the cooling effect and efficiency, thereby ensuring the casting quality of the wheel hub.

[0020] In a preferred embodiment, each inlet pipe 21 is equipped with a flow regulating valve 23 for independently controlling the supply flow rate of cooling water to each cooling chamber 20. Operators can adjust the cooling water flow rate or on / off status of each zone according to the solidification requirements of different parts of the inner lip using the flow regulating valve 23. For example, the flow rate can be reduced for areas with thinner walls, while the flow rate can be increased or cooling can be activated earlier for areas with thicker walls or critical areas requiring rapid solidification. This achieves precise control of the cooling intensity.

[0021] To further improve the heat exchange efficiency of each independent cooling zone, a heat dissipation structure 24 is added to the inner wall of the cooling chamber 20 to increase the contact heat exchange area between the cooling water and the metal substrate of the top mold body 10, thereby achieving the purpose of enhancing the cooling effect.

[0022] Preferably, the heat dissipation structure 24 is a textured structure 241 machined or formed on the inner wall of the cooling chamber 20. The textured structure 241 can be a regular or irregular array of pits or a wavy surface structure. The textured structure 241 effectively breaks the smooth surface of the inner wall of the chamber, increases the degree of water flow turbulence, and significantly expands the heat exchange contact area.

[0023] Preferably, the heat dissipation structure 24 is a heat dissipation fin 242 fixedly disposed on the inner wall of the cooling chamber 20. The heat dissipation fin 242 is a thin sheet structure fixedly connected to the top mold body 10 and extending into the cooling water, providing additional heat conduction path and heat exchange surface area.

[0024] When this invention is applied to heavy-duty wheel hubs or wheel hubs with a large inner lip wall thickness, to further improve cooling intensity and meet cooling requirements, the cooling chamber 20 is connected to two inlet pipes 21 and two outlet pipes 22, forming a double-inlet, double-outlet cooling water path. This significantly increases the flow rate and velocity of the cooling water passing through this area. The double-inlet, double-outlet design greatly enhances the cooling capacity of the corresponding cooling chamber 20, quickly removing heat accumulated in the thick area, effectively suppressing the risk of serious defects such as macroscopic shrinkage cavities and porosity in this area, and significantly shortening the solidification time in this area. This solves the core problem of insufficient cooling in key parts of the inner lip of thick-walled wheel hubs, effectively shortening the demolding time of the entire wheel hub and improving production cycle time while ensuring internal quality.

[0025] The above-disclosed embodiments are merely specific examples of this utility model, but this utility model is not limited thereto. For those skilled in the art, any modifications made without departing from the principle of this utility model should be considered as protected by this utility model.

Claims

1. A top die inner corner lip cooling structure, characterized by: The mold includes a top mold body (10), and the inner lip area of ​​the top mold body (10) is provided with several independent cooling chambers (20) at intervals along the circumferential direction. The cooling chambers (20) are staggered with the ejector pin positions (11) on the top mold body (10), and the cooling chambers (20) extend radially along the top mold body (10) to the outer area of ​​the ejector pin position (11) and closely fit the cavity surface contour of the corresponding inner lip. The cooling chambers are respectively connected to independent water inlet pipes (21) and water outlet pipes (22).

2. The cooling structure of the inner lip of the top die according to claim 1, wherein: Each water inlet pipe (21) is equipped with a flow regulating valve (23) to independently control the supply flow of cooling water to each cooling chamber (20).

3. The cooling structure of the inner lip of the top die according to claim 1, wherein: The inner wall of the cooling chamber (20) is provided with a heat dissipation structure (24) to increase the contact heat exchange area between the cooling water and the metal substrate of the top mold body (10).

4. The cooling structure of the inner lip of the top die according to claim 3, wherein: The heat dissipation structure (24) is a concave-convex structure (241) processed or formed on the inner wall of the cooling chamber (20). The concave-convex structure (241) is a regular or irregular array of pits or a wavy surface structure.

5. The cooling structure of the inner lip of the top die according to claim 3, wherein: The heat dissipation structure (24) is a heat dissipation fin (242) fixedly installed on the inner wall of the cooling chamber (20). The heat dissipation fin (242) is a thin sheet structure fixedly connected to the top mold body (10) and extending into the cooling water.

6. The cooling structure of an inner lip of a top die according to claim 1, wherein: The cooling chamber (20) is connected to two inlet pipes (21) and two outlet pipes (22) to form a double-inlet and double-outlet cooling water path, so as to greatly increase the flow rate and velocity of the cooling water flowing through the area.

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