Did you know die castings are used in 90% of all finished manufactured products? Contributing over $7 billion to the US economy and over 50,000 jobs, this industry is a fundamental component of the country’s market. (www.diecasting.org) Die casting is a metal casting process where molten medal is poured into a mold under high pressure. The mold is created by two steel dies. The process is similar to injection molding, and proper mold maintenance is an essential component to a consistent product.
As with other molding processes, the equipment is under extreme pressure (no pun intended) that causes damage to the parts.
So what are maintenance professionals doing to solve this problem?
Wire brushes and metal scrapes often do more harm than good when used to remove hardened metal from die plates. The scratching shortens the life of the equipment. The utilization of dry ice blasting has caused a significant increase in the life of die cast tooling by eliminating the wear and tear from traditional abrasive methods. The nonabrasive nature of the dry ice pellets allows for an effective cleaning of the die without causing harm to machine parts.
Overall Improvement
Besides helping preserve the surface of the equipment, dry ice cleaning helps eliminate other maintenance problems with the machinery. Dry ice blasting reduces cleaning time by about 50% meaning cleaning can be done more frequently, and makes touch up cleaning much easier.
The frequent cleaning makes it easier for machine operators to detect other problems in the machine because it keeps the surface of the equipment visible.
The Breakdown on Buildup
Besides removing buildup from the molds, utilizing a dry ice blaster eliminates the media buildup commonly associated with other media blasting methods. Dry ice turns into a gas upon contact, which eliminates the need to sweep up blasting media after cleaning.
To learn more about the process check out this video:
Dry Ice Technology 