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The lost foam casting process (LFCP) is a near-net shape casting process. This process is the most energy efficient casting process available. “Foundry Management and Technology” magazine analyzed the lost foam process and reported a 27% energy savings, a 46% improvement in labor productivity and 7% less material usage compared to other casting processes. The LFCP produces high value parts by combining multiple components into single castings, improving energy efficiency by achieving better metal yields, reducing materials consumption by eliminating cores, providing minimal post casting processing and improving as-cast dimensional accuracy. All of these process features reduce the total energy consumed during manufacturing.

The automotive industry continues to look for opportunities to reduce weight and cost while simultaneously increasing performance and durability. Since the introduction of aluminum cylinder blocks and heads, very few “innovations” have been made in powertrain design and materials. Cast crankshafts have the potential to produce significant weight savings (3-18 kg) with little or no cost penalty. With the advent of new, high strength, cast ductile iron materials, such as MADI™ (machinable austempered ductile iron), which has the highly desirable combination of good strength, good toughness, good machinability and low cost, lightweight crankshafts are posed to become a high volume production reality. An extreme demonstration of a lightweight crankshaft is the current use of a cast MADI crankshaft in the 1100 HP Darrell Cox sub-compact drag race car.

The General Motors L850 world engine uses an induction hardened, ductile iron, camshaft. Unlike most induction hardened camshafts that are machined first and then hardened, this camshaft is deep hardened first and then machined. Using this process, the beneficial compressive surface residual stresses are extremely high. During the development of the L850 camshaft, the casting process was optimized to produce material of sufficient quality to resist quench cracking during the hardening process and to resist mechanical cracking during the machining process. Retained austenite content, residual stress profiles, hardness, microstructure and chemical composition were all characterized and optimized. This paper reviews the material and process development for this unique automotive application.

The NVH characteristics of a modern, aluminum block, V-6 engine were shown to be nearly equivalent when a cast ductile iron crankshaft with multi-mode damper was substituted for the production, forged steel crankshaft with conventional, single torsional mode damper. This result contradicts the traditional thinking that suggests forged steel crankshafts produce better NVH characteristics than ductile iron crankshafts. Also, a lightweight, cast ductile iron crankshaft with multi-mode damper showed only slightly inferior NVH characteristics than the production, forged steel crankshaft with single torsional mode damper. The substitution of cast ductile iron for forged steel can also result in significant cost and weight savings.