Gigacastings, done correctly!

Great article by S&P Global: https://lnkd.in/g-2a7tNX

“Done correctly, gigacasting can theoretically slash per-unit manufacturing costs by eliminating the welding of dozens of body parts by casting one single module.”

What does “Done correctly” mean?? Well to me, success has been seen with extensive advanced engineering and analysis done during product development, tooling development, and process development. The days are gone when you can make assumptions and hope for the best.? When designing a single large casting is has to be solid, it will no longer be simple to fix or change design flaws. The cost of these dies are very expensive and die life needs to be a high priority.? To prolong the life of the die, stresses need to be modeled to understand their inserts need to be added, conformal cooling implemented, die splits engineered, and how the die behaves with mechanical and thermal loading. ?The process needs to be developed alongside the product and tooling design. The gating system plays a big role in die life, casting distortion, and overall quality of the part. Without having a gating system developed during these phases leaves a lot at risk. With such a large upfront investment its crucial to spend substantial resources upfront to achieve quality castings quickly during trials.

“These massive gigacastings (also known as megacastings) carry huge initial startup costs, may have distortion issues in the sheet metal, alter collision-repair capabilities, and require extensive end-of-line inspection scanning. And that is only after ordering a custom-built gargantuan piece of equipment, moving it into place, and figuring out how to efficiently work the temperamental processes.”

?These issues can be mitigated with proper upfront engineering and simulation.? While some manufactures and OEMS know this, a vast majority don’t or refuse to invest and run into major issues down the road.

“So why are established industry automakers and suppliers still chasing these big dreams that come with massive headwinds? Do casting experts have enough technical solutions to known operational problems? And looking downstream into the vehicle use-case, can ADAS systems prevent enough crashes to make up for these unrepairable castings?

Simple answer: It's not about the components, it's about the assembly plant. And it's not about material and methodology changes to the underbelly of vehicles, but the creative processes themselves which are under transformation. And it's not about the exact factory implementation, but how an entirely new workflow can be enabled for improved productivity.”

I really like this, while the public has concerns with repairability, replaceability, lack of weight savings, and dimensional concerns. Giga castings are a revolutionary change as to how a vehicle is manufactured!

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I especially like this question: “Do casting experts have enough technical solutions to known operational problems?” I think we have the technical solutions to produce these castings with exceptional quality and efficiency. These quality castings that have been designed with the proper upfront and advanced engineering will have no problems functioning as intended with no concerns.? BUT, when the casting is subjected to an unintended situation, like a crash, or another impact, how do we increase repairability or replaceability? While the end result might be the same with a mixed metal component, why not have a better solution for this type of situation?