주조/단조 기술을 이용한 알루미늄 쉬프트 포크 제조에 관한 연구

A Study on the Manufacturing of an Aluminum Shift-Fork by Casting/Forging Process

In this study, the casting/forging process was applied to the Shift-Fork, a manual transmission part of automobiles. In the casting experiments, the effects of additives, Sr, Ti＋B and Mg, on the mechanical properties and the microstructure of a cast preform were investigated. When 0.03% Sr were added into the molten aluminum alloy, the finest silicon-structure was observed in the cast preform and the highest tensile strength and elongation accomplished. And when 0.2% Ti＋B were added into the molten Al-Si alloy, the highest values of tensile strength were obtained. The maximum hardness was in case of 0.2% Mg. In the forging experiment, it was confirmed that the optimal configuration of the cast preform could be predicted by FE analysis. To minimize the cost as the press size, the compact shape of preform was proposed to reduce the volume of flash. The modification of shape in designing preform was performed to attain a satisfactory performance in the areas where the mechanical strength were more required. By using FVM(Finite Volume Method) software, it was verified that a proposed casting design was available. To identify the relationship between effective strain and mechanical properties of the final forged product, the compression test was performed. As the result, the tensile strength and elongation of a cast preform were much higher than before forging. The minimum forging temperature was found 40$0^{\circ}C$ to save heating time.