PROCESS AND PLANT FOR PRODUCING COMPONENTS MADE OF AN ALUMINIUM ALLOY FOR VEHICLES AND WHITE GOODS, AND COMPONENTS OBTAINED THEREBY

摘要

A plant and a process are disclosed for producing components made of an aluminium alloy for vehicles and white goods, through the steps of: providing thixotropic billets made of an aluminium 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.

主权项

1. A process for producing components made of an aluminium alloy for vehicles and white goods, comprising the steps of:
providing thixotropic billets made of an aluminium 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, namely more than 50%, in the solid phase in heating means; loading, through loading means, the heated crop ends in an injecting vessel made of non-magnetic steel for further workings with machines with specific characteristics for products of the Semi Solid Material, SSM, type; removing, through scalping devices, an external part of the crop ends that has become cooled when passing from the heating means to the loading means; firstly injecting the scalped 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; depositing the molding from the extracting means onto a conveyor belt; and controlling a quality of the obtained molding, the molding being then sent to downstream mechanical workings and/or an heat treatment.