Liquid metal forging is a highly efficient and precise metal forming process that combines the advantages of casting and forging to produce metal parts with outstanding performance. This process involves injecting molten metal into high-strength molds and applying mechanical static pressure. The molten metal fills the mold cavity under pressure and quickly solidifies, resulting in dense, smooth, and dimensionally accurate parts. Liquid metal forging can be applied to a variety of materials and is capable of forming complex parts, especially large components with varying wall thicknesses, showcasing its unique advantages.
In liquid metal forging, molten metal is injected into a metal mold, and high pressure is applied to ensure that the metal fully fills the mold cavity during solidification, avoiding common casting defects such as porosity, shrinkage cavities, and shrinkage porosity. During this process, the molten metal rapidly fills the mold under high pressure and solidifies, forming dense, fine-grain, small-porosity metal parts.
Compared to traditional hot forging, liquid metal forging offers significant advantages in its versatility for different materials and part structures, providing an ideal forming solution for a wide range of metals. This process can efficiently produce parts from various materials, including non-ferrous alloys such as aluminum, copper, magnesium, and zinc, as well as high-temperature metals like steel, nickel, and cobalt, and composite materials.
Liquid metal forging, as an advanced metal forming technology, is widely used across various industries due to its unique characteristics.
The liquid metal forging process is almost unrestricted by material plasticity, allowing it to form a wide range of materials, including casting alloys, deformable alloys, ferrous metals, and high-temperature metals. Whether it's non-ferrous alloys like aluminum, copper, magnesium, and zinc, or ferrous metals like steel, iron, nickel, and cobalt, liquid metal forging can deliver excellent results.
Liquid metal forging can produce parts ranging from a few millimeters to several tens of millimeters in size, making it particularly suitable for complex parts with varying wall thickness. Even for intricate components such as cup-shaped parts, fork seats, and boxes, liquid metal forging can efficiently form them with high precision. This process allows for precise control over the dimensions and shapes of the parts, meeting the requirements for high-precision, high-performance production.
Unlike traditional forging, which requires billets and includes complex steps such as heating and cutting, liquid metal forging directly shapes molten metal by applying mechanical pressure. This simplifies the production process, significantly improving production efficiency. Moreover, the formed parts typically do not require further processing, reducing manufacturing costs and enhancing overall productivity.
Another significant advantage of liquid metal forging is its environmental friendliness. The process consumes fewer materials and allows for the recycling of waste. Unlike traditional forging, liquid metal forging does not require heating billets, avoiding oxidation and loss of material. Additionally, this process generates minimal waste, achieving precise forming with 100% material utilization. Furthermore, the equipment needed for liquid metal forging is compact, and its energy consumption is low, making it a low-energy, low-pollution green manufacturing technology.
While liquid metal forging, like traditional casting, can form complex parts, it has clear advantages in several areas.
In contrast to traditional casting, which relies on gravity to fill shrinkage gaps, liquid metal forging applies pressure up to 100 MPa to effectively compensate for shrinkage, preventing defects such as shrinkage cavities and shrinkage porosity. As a result, the internal structure of liquid metal forged parts is denser, the grain size is finer, and the surface is smoother, with high dimensional accuracy.
Liquid metal forging uses metal molds with excellent thermal conductivity. The high-pressure application ensures that the molten metal tightly adheres to the mold walls, rapidly cooling and achieving precise shaping. Compared to sand casting, liquid metal forging allows for rapid solidification of the metal, ensuring high surface quality and dimensional precision.
Traditional casting uses sand molds and involves a complex process that often results in dust pollution and waste liquid discharge. In contrast, liquid metal forging does not use sand molds, risers, or generate dust pollution. It complies with environmental standards and effectively reduces the risk of occupational diseases caused by exposure to dust and chemicals.
While liquid metal forging and die casting share some similarities, they differ significantly in terms of applications and processes.
Liquid metal forging has a slower filling speed, typically less than one meter per second, while die casting can achieve speeds of several meters per second, even up to hundreds of meters per second. The pressure in liquid metal forging typically ranges from 20 to 150 MPa, while die casting pressure is relatively lower, ranging from 50 to 80 MPa.
Die casting typically starts solidification from the runner, whereas liquid metal forging starts solidification from the far end of the mold, ensuring the presence of a shrinkage compensation channel throughout the pressure-holding process.
Die casting is primarily used for forming thin-walled, complex parts, while liquid metal forging is more suitable for producing critical parts with thicker walls. The surface quality and dimensional accuracy of liquid metal forged parts are comparable to die casting, but the internal density is higher, and heat treatment can be used to further improve their properties.
By avoiding gas entrapment during the liquid metal forging process, the formed parts exhibit superior mechanical properties. Heat treatment can further enhance their performance. In contrast, die casting often results in porosity, which can lead to cracking due to the expansion of trapped gases.
As a green, efficient, and versatile forming technology, liquid metal forging has seen widespread application in industries such as aerospace, automotive, energy, and machinery. When compared to traditional casting, hot forging, and die casting, liquid metal forging offers distinct advantages in terms of part quality, production efficiency, and material utilization. With continuous technological advancements, liquid metal forging is expected to play an increasingly important role in manufacturing, particularly in the production of complex and high-performance parts, gradually replacing traditional production methods and becoming a critical component of advanced manufacturing technology.
