Importance of Casting Soundness in Aluminium Parts for Laser Weld Quality 2024-26-0191

Light weight and Robust manufacturing technologies are always needed for transformation drive in the Automotive industry for the next-generation vehicles with greater Power to weight ratio. Innovations and process developments in materials and manufacturing processes are key to this light weighting transformation. Aluminium material has been widely used for these light weighting opportunities. However, aluminum joining techniques, characterized by their poor quality and consistency are limiting this transformation. This technical paper represents one of such case, where the part is made up of Aluminium through conventional casting route which has affected the laser weld quality due to poor casting soundness. This experiment explains in detail about the importance of Casting soundness for laser weld quality, weld penetration, strength etc., and the Product consistency. Casting soundness improvement explored with the support of Ingot quality, Die design, Gating design & Size, Overflow designs, Air vent provisions, Vacuum system etc., through Simulation and Developments. This technical paper will support for knowledge enhancement on casting soundness and process robustness importance towards weld quality.