The automotive industry relies on die casting for a variety of applications. Most automobiles have many metal parts that must be cast into specific shapes. Automotive Casting is the perfect method for making these parts. When choosing a metal for the casting process, aluminum or magnesium are often obvious choices. These metals are very lightweight, making them ideal in the automotive industry.
At the same time, zinc is one of the easiest metals to cast, and zinc die casting for automotive parts offers numerous benefits. Zinc die casting combines a high level of production efficiency, superior quality and cost-effectiveness. Here is our guide to using zinc die casting for automobile parts, including benefits, applications and the casting process in the industry.
Benefits of Zinc Die Casting
The benefits of using zinc for die casting include:
Faster die casting process: The two main die casting processes are hot chamber die casting and cold chamber die casting. Aluminum die casting requires the cold chamber method, which only allows for two or three shots a minute. On the other hand, zinc die casting uses hot chamber die casting, which can allow four or five shots a minute, saving you both time and money.
Maximum strength and hardness: Zinc parts are naturally stronger than aluminum or magnesium parts without any special treatment. In fact, some zinc alloys can be over twice as strong and 15 times harder than A380 aluminum alloy.
Greater flexibility: Zinc is an extremely fluid metal. It is easier to work with than aluminum and gives you more options when casting parts. With zinc, you can make parts in complex shapes with thinner walls. This capability makes up for the fact that aluminum is lighter in weight than zinc.
Applications of Zinc Die Casting in the Automotive Industry
There are many applications for zinc Die Casting in the automotive industry. One of the most important is manufacturing parts designed to increase the safety of the vehicle, such as seatbelt components. The ability to form zinc into very specific parts, without losing the metal’s stability and strength, makes zinc ideal for automotive safety components.
Due to its excellent corrosion resistance, zinc is also often used to make parts on the exterior of the vehicle, including parts of the windshield wiper, sunroof and chassis. In addition, zinc is often found in door lock housings, camshaft components, brake parts, components under the hood, parts of the fuel system and more.
Many automotive manufacturers prefer to make as many zinc parts as possible, since zinc-casted products can often go directly into the assembly process. They already have an attractive finish, so they do not need to undergo any special finishing. Plus, zinc parts are already strong, so there’s no need to add a reinforcing alloy.
With no Lighting Housing at all, a bare bulb’s light goes out equally in all directions. Looking at the bulb directly can be uncomfortable. Bare bulbs are sometimes used in lighting, but usually in places where the light is precious and where someone’s not likely to accidentally stare right at it – such as in a closet or high in a stairwell.
The direct glare from a bare bulb can actually damage the eye. Use lampshades to both block the eye from directly seeing the bulb, and to direct the light where you want it to go.
A lamp shade’s purpose is to protect the eye from the bulb's glare and to direct light from the bulb in the lamp into the room.
A common form of the lampshade on a floor lamp, for example, uses cloth or paper with a loose weave to block significant amounts of light in a horizontal direction. At the same time, the shade permits light to flow from the top and bottom. This allows light to be more focused below the shade – perhaps for the use of the person sitting in a nearby chair, to permit them to read more easily – and some light to flow to the ceiling, where it is reflected and becomes part of the ambient light in the room.
By blocking the light horizontally, those sitting or walking are unlikely to have the direct glare of the bulb hit them in the eye. Instead, they have the softer reflected light from the ceiling and the much-diffused light through the shade.
A torchiere shade will, instead, project most of the light upwards. Torchieres are part of accent lighting and general lighting, rather than task lighting.
