14Feb

Aluminum Die Casting Market Insights: What Our Consumers Have To Say

In 2013, the North American Die Casting Association conducted a survey of OEM users of die castings in order to determine what the market place is seeking from our industry.

A few questions were posed to nearly 100 companies that represented $450 million in die cast purchases. The idea was to get a pulse of the market thought at this time.  Here are a few of the questions, and some of the answers, courtesy of NADCA, in graphic format for ease of understanding.

If your company does not use die cast products, what are the main reasons?

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If your company uses die cast products, what are some common problems that you see?

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Component porosity was noted almost 3X more than any other issue. The rest of the problem causes were widespread, and had almost every facet of the process chain represented.

If your company uses die cast products, what are the main advantages you see?

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The largest advantage is cost, with physical/mechanical properties and dimensional repeatability coming in second and third respectively.

Here are the advantages perceived by designers of products and purchasing personnel for the OEM companies:

Advantages Cited By Designer's and Purchasers

 

The final question on the survey sought to determine what more technical information was needed to help the designer understand and use die cast products more. Half of the responses concerned the need for more design detail.  The remaining areas identified were almost evenly distributed with understanding alloys coming in second.  Combining the ‘alloy’ percentage with ‘mechanical properties’ percentage would result in 19% interested in understanding the process capabilities more in relation to the achievable strengths.  New heat treat technology, vacuum die casting, and structural casting alloys have increased the interest in the design community.

What type of technical information would you like to have more of on die cast products? 

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Next, is the list of technical issues and material that the market is seeking from the die casting industry:

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Just reviewing the results, one can see that the market for die casting is looking for better technical information on part design, metal types and differences, and support for part design.

In the next few months Premier will be offering this type of information on our website in an effort to satisfy those out there looking for information. If you have any parts you want to consider as a potential die casting and you would like Premier to review it, please send your drawings or files to lc@diecasting.com.

We can offer you a direct consultation for design and material information. By Leonard Cordaro, President of Premier Engineered Products


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