Vacuum Die Casting Mold Design of Fuel Cell Bipolar Plate using Die Filling Simulation and Experimental Verification

In this paper, we present the results of our studies on optimal die design towards development of a vacuum die casting process to fabricate fuel cell bipolar plate with micro-channel array. Cavity and overflow shape is designed by computational filling analysis of MAGMA soft. Optimal die design consists of seven overflows at the end of cavity and three overflows at each side wall of cavity. The molten metal that passed the gate and reached the side wall flowed into the side overflow, no turbulent flow occurred, and the filling behavior and velocity distribution were uniform. In addition, partially solidified molten metal passing through the channel was perfectly eliminated by overflow without back-flow. When vacuum pressure, injection speed of low and high region was 300 mbar, 0.3 m/s and 2.5 m/s respectively with Silafont 36 die casting alloy, sound sample without casting defects was obtained. The experimental results are nearly consistent with simulation results.