• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.62-67
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• 1998

An experimental study has been carried out to investigate casting process parameters which influence on the microstructures of cast preforms in casting/forging process of aluminum alloy. In the casting process, pouring temperature, pouring time, mold temperature, mold material, and, cooling method are selected as process parameters. With the cast preform, a forging test has been performed to compare mechanical properties of final products between casting/forging process and forging process. From the experimental results, low mold temperature and water cooling method are favorable for obtaining minute microstructures of cast preforms. Casting defects included in cast preforms. such as pores and shrinkage cavity, are eliminated by the forging process. And comparing cast/forged products with conventionally forged products, the former are almost as same as the latter in mechanical characteristics.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.905-909
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• 2001

The significance of casting/forging process for reducing the production cost of large components is being noted in these days. This casting/forging process is a method of forging a workpiece preformed by casting into the final shape. In this study, the casting/forging process has been applied in manufacturing a large aluminum flange in order to determine the optimum forging condition of the aluminum flange. The optimum range of forging temperature of Al 5083 was from $420^{\circ}C$ to $450^{\circ}C$. The suitable strain rate was 1.5 $sec^{-1}$. The deformation amount of a preform in a forging process is key role in the mechanical properties of casting/forging products. In order to find the change of mechanical properties according to effective stain of cast aluminum billets, a hot upsetting test were performed with rectangular blocks and then a uniaxial tensile test was performed with specimens cut from the upsetted billets. The tensile strength and the elongation of cast/upsetted aluminum billets were increased largely until the effective strain was 0.7. FE analysis was performed to determine the configurations of cast preform and die for an aluminum flange. In the FE analysis, the forging load-limit was fixed 1500ton for the low equipment cost. The cast preform was designed so that the effective stain around the neck of a flange exceeds 0.7. In the forging experiment for an aluminum flange, it was confirmed that the optimal configuration of the cast preform predicted by FE analysis was very useful. The cast/forged products using designed preform were made perfectly without any defects.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.329-336
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• 2010

Ring forging process is more appropriate for high-length and thin walled ring, because it utilizes the forging press and hence does not require heavy-duty ring rolling mill. Although ring forging process is very simple and economic for facilities, the process is not efficient because of multi-forging-step and low material utilization. An effective ring forging process is developed using a hollow ingot. When a hollow ingot is used with a workpiece, the ingot can be forged into a final ring without multi-stage pre-forging process, such as, cogging, upsetting, and piercing, etc.. Finally it has advantages of the material utilization and process improvement because a few reheating and forging process are not necessary to make workpiece for ring forging. The important design variables are the applied plastic deformation energy to eliminate cast structure and make uniform properties. In this study, the mechanical properties after forging of hollow cast ingot were investigated from the experiment using circumferential sectional model. Also, the effects of process variables were studied by FEM simulation on the basis of thermo-visco-plastic constitutive equation. Applied strain is different at each position in length direction because diameter of hollow ingot is different in length direction. The different strain distribution become into a narrow gap by additional plastic deformation during diameter extension process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.139-142
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• 2003

In this study, casting/forging process was used to produce an aluminum lower control arm for automobiles. Firstly, casting experiments were carried out to get an enhanced preform for forging the lower control arm. In the casting experiment, the effect of an additive, Sr, on the mechanical properties such as tensile strength and elongation and the microstructure of a cast preform were investigated. And a finite element analysis was peformed to determine an optimal configuration of the cast preform. Lastly, a forging experiment was carried out to make the final product of aluminum lower control arm by using the above cast preform. In the casting experiments, when 0.025% Sr was added into molten A356, the maximum values of tensile strength and elongation of the cast preform were obtained. In the forging experiment, It was confirmed that the optimal configuration of a cast preform predicted by FE analysis was very useful. The cast/forged product using designed preform was made without any defects.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 2002

Recently, many studies have been carried out to process on the purpose of lightness in a transport parts because of the saving energy, the environmental problem. The cast-forging process can be expected to lower costs without decreasing the mechanical properties. So, the finest microstructure is needed to get for applying the cast-forging process with Al-Si alloy because the microstructure affects to the cast-forging process. For refinement treatment of eutectic Si and Al solid-solution phase, Sr and TiB were added in Al-Si alloys. The finest microstructure could be observed when 0.075 wt.%Sr and 0.1 wt.%TiB were added respectively. In this case, tensile strength and elongation much more increased than as casting. After high temperature deformation simulation test with grain refinement specimens was carried out, about 70N per unit $area(mm^2)$ of specimen was confirmed. After hot forging, tensile strength and elongation were increased. It was considered because casting defect was removed by compressive working.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.1438-1443
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• 2001

The significance of the casting/forging process for reducing the production cost of large components is being noted in these days. This casting/forging process is a method of forging a workpiece preformed by casting into the final shape. In this study, the casting/forging process has been applied in manufacturing a large aluminum flange in order to reduce press capacity and material cost. Firstly, a hot compression test was performed with cast cylindrical billets in order to determine the optimum forging condition of the aluminum flange. The optimum range of forging temperature of Al 5083 was from 420$\^{C}$ to 450$\^{C}$. The suitable strain rate was 1.5 sec(sup)-1. The deformation amount of a preform of a preform in a forging process is a key role in the mechanical properties of casting/forging products. In order to find the change of mechanical properties according to effective stain of cast aluminum billets, a hot upsetting test were performed with rectangular blocks and then a uniaxial tensile test was performed with specimens cut from the upsetted billets. The tensile strength and the elongation of cast/upsetted aluminum billets were increased largely until the effective strain was 0.7. FE analysis was performed to determine the configurations of case preform and die for an aluminum flange. In the FE analysis, the forging load-limit was fixed 1500ton for low equipment cost. The cast preform was designed so that the effective stain around the neck of a flange exceeded 0.7. From the result of FE analysis, optimal configurations of the cast preform and the die were designed for a large flange. The filling and solidification analysis for a sound cast-preform was carried out with MAGMA soft. In the forging experiment for an aluminum flange, it was confirmed that the optimal configuration of the cast preform predicted by FE analysis was very useful. The cast/forged products using designed preform were made perfectly without any defects.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.329-332
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• 2004

Cast-forging process has a lot of advantages in terms of saving materials along with enhancement of mechanical properties. Therefore, this process has been taken as one of candidate process to manufacturing automotive suspension parts. Since most of cast-forging parts are made with using Al-Si alloys of high castability, the mechanical properties largely depends on the primary ${\alpha}$ and eutectic Si particles. During hot forging step these microstructural features evolve with strain increment. In the present study, the mechanical property evolution was investigated in terms of microstructual evolution with strain. Specially, fracture behavior of A356 alloy was studied to find out how to improve the mechanical properties.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.188-191
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• 2005

Lower arm for automobile has been made in steel traditionally. Nowadays steel is being substituted fur aluminum to reduce weight of automobile. Widely applied production method of aluminum component has been casting processes or cast/forging processes. But casting or cast/forging processes have limits of application to parts which is required high strength durability like automotive component. In this research, hot forging process has been adopted to produce aluminum lower arm to ensure required mechanical properties. To reduce production cost, 2 pieces with 1 blow process was developed. Optimization and verification of hot forging process for aluminum lower arm was performed by computer aided engineering using finite volume methods.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.193-197
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• 2002

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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.7-21
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• 2000

This paper describes an overview of the thixoforming and thixomolding processes. Semi-solid metalworking (SSM), which is called the thixoforming process of aluminium materials, incorporates the elements of both casting and for the manufacture of near net shape parts. The SSM has some advantages such as net shape or near net shape manufacturing, the ability to form thin walls, excellent surface finish, tight tolerance, and excellent dimensional precision. The thixomolding process of Mg alloy (AZ9l) is a combination of two technologies both conventional die casting and plastic injection molding. The feed material used is a machined chip with a geometry of approximately 1 mm square and a length of 2~3 mm. The semi-solid forming (SSF) of high quality aluminium and magnesium parts will be established in the automotive and electronic industry, in the future. The hybrid method of casting/forging has been caused attention. This process uses a preformed material made by casting instead of the wrought material and finishes it by a single forging process. This process is expected to lower costs without sacrificing the mechanical and finishes it by a single forging process. The process is expected to lower costs without sacrificing the mechanical properties. The authors, intending that the casting/forging process contributes to a reduction in production cost of aluminum automotive parts in Korea, describes the feature of the casting/forging process, aluminum alloys suitable for the cast preform, microstructure and mechanical properties of the cast preform, application examples of cast/forging, and further study.