Services • Technology

World Leading Technology

An automotive OEM recently declared Sarginsons work on Digital Twin Simulations as 'the most significant advance in casting technology for over 30 years'. This epitomises Sarginsons strategy of being the global leader in casting technology. Technology that creates a real world advantage for customers and foundry alike by minimising mass, costs, development times and carbon, whilst maximising TYE mechanical performance.

For Sarginsons, creating digital twin simulations, which predict TYE mechanical performance, fatigue and stress at any point of a casting, was the start of a whole range of new technologies. Everything from Topological Optimisation, Designed Deformation and Smart Cooling through to eAlloy development. But the real secret was making it all exploitable through the data being exportable to OEM's hexa/ tet meshes.

Only Sarginsons can exploit the infinite design potential of Liquid Metal Engineering.

TYE Mapping to FEA Mesh

Sarginsons has achieved a pivotal advance in casting simulation by developing proprietary methods to map spatially heterogeneous variable mechanical properties; specifically Tensile strength, Yield strength, and Elongation directly onto finite element analysis (FEA) meshes.

This enables high-fidelity, spatially resolved, dynamic simulations of full-vehicle crashworthiness, structural performance, and fatigue behaviour under realistic loading conditions.

In contrast, conventional simulations of cast aluminium components typically apply homogenized material models, which inherently overlook local microstructural variations.

This is available as a stand alone service and is recommended for all structural castings.

Digital Twin Simulations

'The biggest breakthrough in casting for 30 years' describes the ability to predict TYE mechanical strength at any point on a component's form, and export that data directly to clients hexa/ tet meshes. No need to take the risk of using averaged, homogenised data cards. as is the current practice.

It cannot be overstated how Sarginsons ability to create accurate Digital Twin Simulations will change the diecasting world. For the first time, casting performance can be understood at the design phase which de-risks projects, informs lightweighting and compresses time to manufacture.

Every structural casting should run a Sarginsons Digital Twin Simulation. There's nothing else close to it.

Topological Lightweighting

The maths of lightweighting is topological optimisation; minimising mass for a defined design space under given constraints The problem for casting, until Sarginsons, has been the inability to predict variable TYE data at any point across a cast component's form. With this solved, the enormous lightweighting potential of topology in casting becomes a massive opportunity for every OEM.

Sarginsons are achieving 30% mass reductions, with 48% across one, single piece sub-frame, and believe that every structural casting can be similarly improved. In many cases topological optimisation is also improving the strength of the cast component, despite the significant mass reduction.

It cannot be overstated how fundamentally this will improve castings.

Augmented Solidification

Solidification simulation software is standard at most foundries, but few recognise the imperfections and nuances of the different types of these programmes; fewer still seek to use these variations to gain advantage.

Sarginsons combines three different solidification packages, each with their own particular strengths, with five years of datasets specifically developed through testing and it's own simulations. The result is a multi-faceted solidification study, that provides an enhanced view of potential casting issues, to enable earlier problem resolution, better castings and lower costs.

The better the solidification study, the better the casting.

Intelligent Tooling

Another Sarginsons innovation, and the key to the Freeform Casting concept, is the use of innovative tool fabrication techniques, such as 3D printed cooling channels, to target areas of stress by refining cast grain structures without additives or by increasing component mass.

This radical new approach means that almost any component design becomes castable, massively increasing the flexibility and potential of cast components which, in turn, transform the cost dynamics of their creation and performance.

Intelligent casting tooling turns casting into liquid metal engineering.

Designed Deformation

Sarginsons strives to avoid heat treatment and its distortion through intelligent tool design, alloy selection and targeted cooling. When unavoidable, Sarginsons simulates the heat treatment distortion to find virtual solutions such as temperature sequencing, component orientation, residual stress analysis and better fixturing.

Sarginsons can also exploit the concept of Designed Deformation, in which tools produce components in a negative of the predicted distorted component, so heat treatment distorts them into the desired position; negating the need for further manipulation. This ability to negate distortion is particularly important with larger castings.

Heat distortion is a huge problem, but now can be overcome.

Enhanced Secondary Alloys

Aluminium recycles easily but cannot totally replace new aluminium, because it's innate strength is impacted by contamination in the recycling process. Sarginsons strengthens recycled alloys through grain refinement, additive purification, and other processes that enhance nucleation and associated kinetics.

Successful trials are now being commercialised an extensive R&D program, which also seeks to create a supply chain of clean aluminium through QR coding and laser sorting. The end result is an ability to use secondary aluminium in all applications with carbon emissions reduced by 97.5%.

Recycled aluminium can now totally replace primary aluminium.

Freeform Casting

Casting designs have conventionally been restricted by traditional CAD modelling driven by homogenised, fixed TYE in CAE simulations and the limits of production tooling. This typically results in designs that are overweight, cumbersome, and challenging to cast.

By adopting topology optimisation, enhanced casting solidification simulation, mapped performance predictions, and additive tooling techniques it is now possible to create castings that are organic in design, geometrically free, de-risked, and fully mass optimised. This is Sarginsons approach, this is the future.

Freeform Casting is a design revolution.