Importance of Casting Soundness in Aluminium parts for Laser Weld Quality

Light weight and Robust manufacturing technologies are always needed for transformation drive to the Automotive industry for next-generation vehicles with better Power to weight ratio. Innovations and process developments in materials and manufacturing processes are key to this light weighting transformation. Aluminium material has been widely used for this light weighting opportunities. However aluminium joining techniques, quality and poor consistency are limiting this transformation. This technical paper represents one of such case, where the part is made up of Aluminium through conventional casting route which affected laser weld quality due to poor casting soundness. This experiment explains in detail about the importance of Casting soundness for Laser weld Quality, Penetration, Strength etc., and the product consistency. Casting soundness improvement explored with support of Ingot quality, Die design, Gating design & Size, Overflow designs, Air vent provisions, Vacuum system etc., through Simulation and Developments. This technical paper will support for knowledge enhancement on casting soundness and process robustness importance towards best laser weld quality.