Swedish premium car brand Volvo Cars has purchased two Carat 840 die-casting units for its plant in Torslanda, Sweden. The Carat 840 will be launched in 2021, along with the Carat 920, Bühler’s largest die casting solution.
In October 2021, Bühler introduced the Carat 840 and Carat 920 with locking forces up to 92,000 kilonewtons (kN). Using these machines, Volvo can produce car body structural castings of white components, known as jumbo castings.
“Megacasting is critical to the entire die casting industry,” said Cornel Mendler, managing director of Bühler Die Casting. “Megacasting has once again driven the trend in structural casting by extending the application range to complete body parts with the use of new large carat solutions with locking forces of up to 92,000 kN.
Volvo Cars was one of the first automakers to use the giant casting process. Megacastings reduces production complexity by enabling 70 to 100 parts to be replaced by a single die cast part. These single-piece castings are often produced close to the car assembly line, which allows for better integration and less shipping. Aluminium castings are nearly CO2 neutral when the furnace uses low CO2 aluminium alloys and biogas. Spilled aluminium can be directly remelted and reused in the die casting unit, avoiding shipping and recycling. Thinking a little further, using lighter aluminum components could reduce a car’s energy consumption over its entire life cycle.