Thermal deformation of aluminum alloy casting materials for tire mold by numerical analysis

Thermal deformation of aluminum alloy casting materials for manufacturing the tire mold was numerically investigated. The AC7A and AC4C casting material was selected as casting material and the metal casting device was used in order to manufacture the mold product of automobile tire in the actual industrial field. The temperature distribution and the cooling time of casting materials were numerically calculated by finite element analysis (FEA). Also, the thermal deformation such as displacement and stress distribution was calculated from the temperature results. The thermal deformation was closely related to the temperature difference between the surface and inside of the casting. The numerical analysis results reveal that the thermal deformation of AC7A casting material is higher than that of AC4C casting material. Also, the thermal deformation results at the central part are larger than that on the side of casting because of the shrinkage caused by the cooling speed difference.