Repair, reinforce, reuse Laser material deposition: Longer service life for moulds and tools

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Die-casting moulds are costly, highly stressed assets — and unexpected tool failure can quickly disrupt production. Fraunhofer ILT is showing how laser material deposition, EHLA and AI-assisted repair processes can extend mould life, reduce downtime and make toolmaking more resource-efficient.

Manufacturing and maintaining die-casting tools professionally is crucial to the foundry industry: As one of the most expensive assets, these tools play a decisive role in determining quality, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. Easily costing hundreds of thousands of euros, complex moulds and inserts must be able to function over many years without interruption. They must also withstand extreme stress: In die casting, for example, the mould materials are exposed to temperatures of up to 700 °C, while the tools are subjected to mechanical forces of several hundred kilonewtons. Added to these are abrasive stresses on the tool surface and chemical attack by alloying elements in the casting materials. Thermal stresses and material fatigue lead to cracking, erosion, and abrasive wear. Even when the moulds are designed optimally and manufactured carefully, their wear is an unavoidable factor that eventually means tools have to be replaced. If this occurs unexpectedly, it results in significant downstream costs.

The economic implications are significant: Every tool failure results in production downtime, additional setup times, and sometimes a manufacturer needs to produce new inserts or even entire tools. At the same time, manufacturers are under growing pressure to produce and operate moulds both cost-effectively and sustainably. “In an industry where every minute of production time counts, we need processes that can extend tool lifecycles, reduce downtime, and optimize production processes from an environmental perspective,” explains Dr Thomas Schopphoven, Head of the Laser Material Deposition Department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen, Germany.