Deflection and the prevention of ingress within laminated tooling for pressure die-casting.

Within the context of rapid tooling, we are currently assessing the fundamental limitations of laminated tooling for pressure die-casting (PDC) applications. The use of individual laminates to form a die-cast tool presents it own problems, namely the prevention of excessive deflection that may lead to the ingress of pressurised molten aluminium between laminates. Ultimate solutions lie with bonding and clamping techniques of which work is already underway. This paper describes an initial study to establish the fundamental laminated die behaviour in extreme die-casting environments.