Impacts of High-Pressure Diecasting Process Parameters on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Abstract

The impacts of some high-pressure diecasting (HPDC) process parameters on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are quantified using life cycle analysis (LCA) for both aluminum and magnesium alloys. The study was conducted according to ISO 14040 standards and was based on an automotive component made on cold-chamber HPDC machines operating in typical mass production environments. The aluminum alloy foundry was located in Australia; the magnesium alloy foundry was located in the United States. In both cases, emissions were found to reduce with an increasing HPDC process yield. However, yield variations had only a modest impact on GHG emissions in the aluminum alloy HPDC, due to the excellent in-plant recycling of the alloy and the relatively low emissions from primary aluminum production compared with primary magnesium production. In contrast, for the magnesium alloy, significant reductions in emissions were recorded as the yield increased. This outcome was attributed to the considerable savings achieved in raw material quantities sourced from high-emitting primary production and the use of lower amounts of SF6, a GHG with a very high global warming potential (GWP). These results were found to hold irrespective of changes to the ratio between the primary and secondary alloys in the raw material mix, although the magnitude of the impact was reduced considerably with reductions in the primary alloy component. In the case of the magnesium alloy HPDC, decreases in quality assurance (QA) rejects and cycle times were also found to contribute toward reduced emissions, although their influences were an order of magnitude lower than that of the yield improvements.