Assessment of die material manufactured using the lost foam casting process for hot press forming

Abstract

The lost foam casting process for the manufacture of press dies has attracted a lot of attention because of various advantages, such as the small number of processes involved and the reduction in the cost of die production. In a recent study, tensile tests were conducted to analyze the casting defects of ductile cast iron, study the wear of as-cast and heated cast iron, and investigate the use of AISI H13 as a tool material for die casting. However, the most commonly used material for hot press forming is the forged tool steel AISI H13, which has excellent thermal resistance. In spite of the abovementioned advantages of die materials fabricated by lost foam casting, which arise from the near net shape design of the die, no study has been conducted on the use of the heat-treated H13 cast material for hot press forming dies. In this study, impact, machinability, tensile, and wear tests were conducted at high temperatures, and the properties of the heat-treated H13 cast material and the heat-treated H13 forged material were compared.