2020 Volume 37 Pages 57-62
For the realization of "Celebrate Driving", Mazda's brand essence, it is extremely important to perform high-precision molding of the complicated product shape which contributes to engine performance. Molding the product shape precisely, however, is not easy because a thin sand mold which is used for casting the cylinder head material is easily deformed by heat. To improve dimensional accuracy of the material, we need to suppress deformation and prepare a modified die with the expected dimension including minimum deformation. To achieve that, a technique to measure deformation precisely is required. Then we revealed an outbreak mechanism of heat deformation in the sand mold, improved the deformed model based on measured values and established a high-precision deformation prediction technology.
We established a mold structure to suppress deformation by the heat and a model base development process which designs dimension correction in the initial stage of product development by using this technology. We achieved both functionality and productivity by adopting them to production preparation of Skyactiv-X cylinder head. This paper reports our activities.
