Zinc Alloy Fluidity & Why is it Important in Diecasting?

How do different alloys affect the viscosity and characteristics of zinc and how does that affect the design process as well as the final product? To help us better understand zinc alloys and fluidity, we have Dave Magner, director of Sales and Marketing at Deco Products Company, a zinc diecasting company, to help discuss the various zinc alloys and how they determine the design and the final product in zinc diecasting.

Deco Products: www.decoprod.com

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What is zinc alloy fluidity and why is it important in diecasting? How do different alloys affect the viscosity and characteristics of zinc and how does that affect the design process as well as the final product? To help us better understand zinc alloys and fluidity, we have Dave Magner, director of Sales and Marketing at Deco Products Company, to help discuss the various of zinc alloys and how they determine the design and final products in zinc diecasting. Today on the Manufacturing Experts. What is. Zinc alloy fluidity and why is it important in the manufacturing industry? Well, to help us kind of answer that and learn more about zinc diecasting and alloys, we have Dave Magner, the Director of Sales and Marketing at Deco Products Company. Welcome to the podcast, Dave. Yeah. Thanks a lot, Neil. I appreciate your time. No problem. Always glad to have you on. Hey, wanted to start out about the discussion about zinc die casting and more specifically, about zinc alloy fluidity, even if I'm saying that correctly. Let's start off with just a basic one. So, what is zinc diecasting and what is zinc and what is the zinc alloy used in diecasting? Yes. Sure, Neil. So, the process of zinc diecasting, it's all about taking the right chemistry I e the right recipe of this metal alloy, which includes different components for zinc. The number one component within the zinc alloy is zinc itself, with aluminum coming in second. And the chemistry is so, so important. And so it really impacts the different characteristics of the alloy and really lends itself well to what is important to the designer. And so the zinc diecasting process is all about melting that material down and then using a two half mold so that you shoot this molten zinc in and able to achieve the right geometry, which would relate to really the right functionality of the part. And so the type of material is so, so key in that process. What about the zinc alloy is important or advantageous when considering one's the part design? So, there are different materials that can be melted down and shot into a mold plastic, aluminum, magnesium. But zinc has its fit for certain applications. And an important aspect to zinc is to understand the intricate, complicated features of the part itself. Zinc has great dimensional stability, and a big part of that is how it melts and how it fits into the mold and then ultimately cooled. And so understanding really what your base material is, whether it's plastic or zinc, is so important in one's part design. So fluidity is important. But what is fluidity and why is it important? Well, so zinc, rather than some other materials, is very fluid. When it melts, it's almost like water. And so it's all about the viscosity of the material where other materials might be more syrupy. Like, the nature of zinc, when melted, is very fluid. So it flows very well up until the point it's cooled. And so when it is cooled, it can get into certain areas of the mold that can be very detailed. So it might be a closer tolerance that you might need. It may be a small feature that other materials just couldn't achieve with zinc. And really, the chemistry of zinc and how it's processed is so, so key. So can the characteristics of a zinc alloy fluidity impact the part cost and other financial aspects of the project? Yeah, really, in a couple of ways. The fluidity aspect can be strategically used so that thin walls can be created. And because zinc is a fairly strong material rather than a really thick wall, with some design strategy, maybe a preliminary FEA analysis, you can determine that, hey, I can make that zinc wall thinner than another material. And so by doing so, that wall thickness can be less and ultimately material saved and cost saved. So that's so important. Another aspect about fluidity and some of the aspects of zinc and that it can be dimensionally, very stable, is some of those features might require a secondary operation, or you may not be able to hold those tolerances or create those features in other materials, but in zinc you can, thus avoiding all that post processing cost. So those are a couple of elements where zinc and the fluidity of zinc really can help out with the cost impact. Okay, so if part material selection impacts part cost, this could be key to the success of the project. Basically what it sounds like. Absolutely. It is important because weight and material is a big factor in one's cost. And so if you can design that material in a way that it's thinner and less materials used, you're going to achieve a better cost basis on that product. Certainly. So, in addition to part cost, what are some of the other elements of zinc and fluidity that can contribute to a positive design implementation? Sure. Yeah. It gets back to can you create that feature or can you hold that feature in other materials? And if you can't, you are looking at post processing steps that could be much more expensive. With zinc being so fluid, you can achieve those features and really enable the designer to open up their creativity to create the part the way they want to create it, as opposed to some of the limitations on the material itself. Okay, so designing with zinc alloy can impact both the end user and even impact the environment. Really? Yeah. There's some aspects to saving material with the fluidity of zinc. So the less material you're using, the better situation is for the environment. Obviously less material to go in the landfill. But also the amount of heat that we use to melt zinc is less than other materials. And part of that is just the nature of the chemistry. Right. It takes less temperature, less heat to melt zinc. But then also with that said, zinc itself is a material that can be recycled. There's no degradation in the material strength due to regrind, like a plastic part. And so we are able to recycle the material. We're able to minimize the material use even. And even the amount of heat or energy to melt down zinc is decreased due to the properties of the zinc alloy itself. Yeah, I was thinking of it purely from the scrap because, like in plastic injection molding, you've got all that excess and the flash and everything going into it. But I never thought about the heat and the amount of energy it takes to actually melt. So that's a good point. I never took that into consideration. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Are there particular industries or applications where zinc fluidity are more important than other areas? In other words, are there industries that this is more of a factor than others? Yeah, I mean, one area where thin walls, in addition to optimizing strength, is real important. But obviously, zinc is a heavier material, right? And so it can be a characteristic that in aviation, even automotive, you want to minimize the weight as much as possible. So designing things strategically with thinner walls is so important. So those industries, you have to balance the strength and the heft or the mass of zinc with the thin walls that you can achieve. Sometimes plastic or other materials could make sense because zinc is very dense. But one area where zinc is very good is for dissipating heat. So in different electronic applications, you want to move heat away from the printed circuit boards, for example. And so you might create a heat sink out of zinc. And so zinc itself is a good material for heat dissipation. But if you think about another element that will help your dissipation is the surface area of the airflow, right? And so if you can create thinner walls, you can create more fins in a given heat sink. And so part of the challenge there is to create as much surface area for air to move and so the heat can get removed. And so if you can create thinner walls, you can create more fins in the heat sink and thus have a better heat sink achieved in the long run. And so it's a function of the wall thickness, which becomes a function of the number of fins, which becomes a function of the surface area and really, ultimately the effectiveness of that heat sink product. And so that's where zinc and thinner walls can really be a key advantage for the electronics industry like that. You might need something like that also because automotive, everything's trying to shrink down the amount of space used in the engine compartment. Well, a lot of electronics right now key is you have high intensity LEDs that are generating a lot of heat. So the movement of that heat is so important. And even with the EV cars, you have batteries heating up you have charging systems that just work so much more efficiently when the heat is dissipated out. If one of those systems gets too hot, then the system in itself, like a charging system, just becomes less and less efficient. And so the idea of dissipating heat is just really integral to a lot of different applications within the electronics industry. It could be automotive, though, and could be other areas for lighting and other just processing power where heat is generated. What would you say would be the. Main challenges when you're working with zinc alloy fluidity? And does that affect the manufacturing process or the end product? Well, one aspect of fluidity is there's a lot of positive elements to it. I e. You can create very intricate details. But with that said, there are concerns, especially as a tool wears, there may be erosion, and part of a characteristic of the part or the casting will be the presence of flash. So, if a tool erodes on the two halves of the part, for example, because zinc is so fluid, you can get a little excess flash is what we call it in the industry. That is really an undesirable excess material that needs to be trimmed away or dealt with in a way that will not detract from the function of the part. And so, as a diecaster, we have to be cognizant of how a tool wears and how the fluidity of the zinc can impact that. But it's often a great way to identify early on if a tool is wearing. And that can be rectified, whether it's a repair or even a replacement of the entire tool. But because zinc is so fluid, it will find any void or any area of erosion. And that is an important element to control, monitor, and rectify as quickly as possible. It sounds like there's a lot of upfront work in the design to get everything to collaborate, to work together. If somebody is looking at this, is it something that they design and they bring to you, or do you collaborate with the engineers to kind of bring it all to fruition? Yeah, we really pride ourselves on a great collaborative relationship with, ultimately, the designer that understands the function of that part with our expertise and the manufacturability. And so, when you have those two elements converging together, really a nice, optimal design can come into play. And how that really impacts the tool design is that we need to communicate to the part designer how fluidity works and how zinc can flow because it's a very quick process, right? And so we have to simulate this high pressure, almost instantaneous flow of material. And we've got different systems that, in a predictive way, we can identify possible issues with material full that's undesirable. It might create surface finishes that are less than ideal. It might create porosity, which are little air bubbles. And so, in a predictive way, we want to identify that design around that, and so that even before we cut steel on the tool, that we have identified that and ideally rectify that. Now, of course, we still have to create the tool, run the tool, and identify how the real part looks. But that's a great example of how our expertise in design for manufacturability can really complement the ultimate success of that project. And just to give a little plug here, you actually can tell person, right, from all the way through the whole process, from working with the design, through even the tooling, all the way to the actual production. Correct. Yeah. It really helps both sides to collaborate together. We can do a better job when we understand how that part works, maybe in a systematic way, and then they can design the part better and smarter, because there's hundreds of decisions an engineer has to make, and often it's a balance, right, of different constraints. And so if they understand some of the manufactureability, some of the arbitrary decisions that one could make are now really aligned to a better cost and a better long term solution, as opposed to just something that will work on day one. We want to collaborate so it works in day one. And then the life of the tool, the performance and the dimensional and strength characteristics of that part are not only good on day one, but throughout the entire life of the product. And that could be years and even decades later. Dave, this has been great. I mean, this has really given a good understanding of zinc diecasting, but also how fluidity plays a role in that. I'm going to give you the last couple of minutes if you want to summarize or any other points you wanted to point out, bring out. Well, the kind of eye opening moment when we talk to people that aren't familiar with zinc alloys. And the diecasting process is fluidity because everybody has this impression that it's a dense metal and that the metal is going to be sluggish and syrupy, but maybe some steel, some plastics, you can't move as quick. And when you do, the way the material is shot into the mold has its limitations. The idea of fluidity and high fluidity within the zinc alloy properties really is something that's difficult to see. And it's certainly something you don't see with the solidified part in front of you that's heavy. It's a massful part usually. But when you see the diecasting process in real life, in real time, you see how quickly the material can flow, how quickly it can solidify, and then becomes very rigid and very stable. Those are just usually eye opening moments when we talk through some of these things. And then the design engineer can really understand that they can design things in a little different way. And a lot of the designers we work with might know plastic injection molding really well. And so it's a very similar process but plastic injection molding, you have warpage, you have concerns with heat sink and wall thickness. Design is very important in that world. Zinc is a lot more accommodating. You can design wall thickness in varying amounts throughout the design. You don't have to worry about warpage as much because as the part solidifies in zinc, it solidifies quickly, and it solidifies in a very stable way. And so there's not this long term warpage. Sometimes plastic parts that I've been involved with, they turn into kind of a potato chip, right? Exactly. You wouldn't get that type of consideration with the zinc. It solidifies and it's quite rigid, and it's established right to the right geometry right from the start. And so those are things that often the design engineer is like, okay, now I got some new ways to be creative and really let their own initiative and aligned concentration on part function really wins the day in that type of environment. This is a lot to go through. And I'm sure people that are listening to this, if they have more questions or they have a project, should they contact you or if you want to say who they should contact with the company. Yeah, absolutely. We pride ourselves in our engineering expertise. We've got a lot of different folks throughout a lot of disciplines here that are engineering related. I, within sales, have an engineering background. We've got design engineers, we have process engineers, quality engineers to help our customers and really align to advice. But then we have people working on continuous improvement robotics. And really, we've got engineering expertise on the back end, too, for our operations group. And so all that comes together. We pride ourselves in not only delivering quality parts on time and really supporting the lifecycle of the product from day one to the end of life, but also to supporting our customers in the design process itself. And so we've got some resources on our website. We've got different ways to connect with us in today's world. It could be a phone call, an email, webinar, or us just getting involved in person. And so we always happy to talk through things, talk through when zinc is a good material and even when zinc is not a good material, some parts really will function well in other materials. And we want to steer that customer in the right direction. And if it happens to make sense in sync, then we can take things further, obviously. But our goal is really to be supportive of the customer and to help them do their job and make that project successful. That's excellent. And what we'll do is we'll also put a link to the website in the show notes so that people need to go down and be able to click on it and be able to go right over to the website. Great. Can't thank you enough. That has been very informative. And thank you for being on the manufacturing expert. This is great and thank you again for your time and taking time to talk to us about this. Great Neil. I appreciate your efforts and helping the rest of the industry and the folks. To learn more and at any point, just give me a shout. Appreciate it. Thank you for listening to our podcast. The Manufacturing Experts is designed to provide our audience with information and discussion about manufacturing from Manufacturing Experts. We do not monetize this podcast and ask for your support by subscribing to our channel and telling a friend about our podcast. We also value your opinion and would love to hear your feedback. Simply contact us using the email listed in the show. Notes.