Walking into the foundry, what meets your eyes is the huge melting furnace. Here, waste metal parts are put into the furnace, experiencing a high temperature of 1500 ℃ baptism. Let the metal back to the original state, ready to start a new life journey. This one process only required the recycling of a batch of end-of-life engine blocks. When they are thrown into the furnace, these metals can be turned into the sinews of another car. This recycling process makes the foundry a never-ending wheel of life. The moment the metal solution is injected into the mould. Under an X-ray microscope, we can see the process of metal crystallisation: the atoms in the liquid metal begin to arrange themselves in an orderly fashion, gradually forming a dense crystal structure. This process, known as 'directional solidification', is the key to controlling the quality of automotive investment casting. Engineers control the cooling rate precisely so that the metal solidifies in the optimum condition. In a foundry, each process is essential: melting, pouring, cooling and cleaning. During the pouring process, the metal solution is injected into the mould at a precisely controlled flow rate, a process that must be completed in a matter of seconds - too fast and bubbles will be created, too slow and cold segregation will result - just enough to create the perfect automotive casting. In the quality testing laboratory, the microstructure of the casting is observed through an electron microscope. When magnified thousands of times, the grains on the metal surface are arranged like galaxies, the graphite flakes are like cosmic dust, and the air holes are like miniature black holes. These microstructures record every time point in the casting process. By analysing these 'time stamps', we can trace the birth of every automotive die casting.
In the future, 4D printing technology will appear here. This technology not only prints three-dimensional shapes, but also allows the material to deform itself under certain conditions. And together we can look forward to the time when automotive castings manufacturers will apply this technology to automotive castings.