some of iTherm® Plungers have been in operation for over 120.000 shots
3 times longer lifetime with iTherm® Plunger
3x
longer lifetime
Background information
A single body iTherm® Plunger with an innovative Internal Cooling System presents an optimum solution for the reduction of cycle time in HPDC and improved in-service life.
iTherm® system provides the highest cooling effectiveness while improving: productivity, cast part quality, piston durability.
This tip is a critical component of the shot end for HPDC, where other cooling solutions on the market involve complicated multi-piece assemblies and often Beryllium-Copper (BeCu) alloys.
The HTS iTherm® plunger is a single piece tip made of hardened tool steel, with a tempered steel ring providing a wear point to extend the service life of both the shot tip and the shot sleeve.
Improvements with iTherm® Plunger
Substantially longer lifetime
For an average size shot tip (~100mm in diameter), a BeCu tip can be expected to last 4,000-7,000 shots. An iTherm® shot tip of the same size can be expected to last 50,000-80,000+ shots, with the rings lasting 20,000-30,000 shots.
Shown below, an iTherm® shot tip, still in operation after 91,000 shots and 3x ring changes (every 30,000 shots).
shots
120.000+
Cycle time reduction
It has been known for a long time that steel plungers last much longer than BeCu plungers, but many still use BeCu to improve the cooling capacity near the biscuit.
With iTherm® Plungers, the conformal cooling of the steel allows the heat removal rate to exceed that of BeCu plungers. This means that die casters finally have a solution that allows for a maximum component lifetime and maximum cooling power.
On average, die casters that implement an iTherm® Plunger save 7-15% of cycle time on systems limited by biscuit cooling. Further cycle time reductions can be achieved by implementing conformal cooling on shot blocks and die cores or cavities.
