OPTIMIZATION OF RECYCLING PROCESS OF DIE CAST ALUMINUM A380 MACHINING CHIPS

Aluminum alloys have been increasingly utilized in automotive industry in recent years. Along with components manufactured, considerable amount of aluminum waste in the form of scrap, dross, and machining chips is produced as by-products. In this study, aluminum chips were collected from computer numerical control (CNC) machines. The cleaning method and refining parameters were investigated. Recovery rate reached as high as 90.3% with a remarkable chemical component and micro-structure compared to die-cast aluminum alloy A380 referred. Then, to optimize the recycling process, Design of Experiment (DOE) was employed. Flux types, chips/flux ratios, holding times and holding temperatures were selected as four factors and for each factor, three corresponding levels were also chosen to create Taguchi orthogonal array. Signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios for multiple characteristics and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were utilized to analyze experimental data. Optimum combinations of factors were analyzed and concluded for individual response and multi-response