West Midlands engineering firm, Sarginsons Industries believes it has created one of the world’s thinnest sandcast automotive components.
Sarginsons Industries, one of Coventry’s heritage manufacturers who celebrate their 80th year in 2016, has produced a prototype batch of body in white (BIW) components for one of the UK’s largest and most prestigious OEMs at just 2.5mm wall thickness.
BIW is the stage in automotive manufacturing in which a car body’s sheet metal components are welded together. The majority of sand casting foundries work with BIW components with a thickness of between 4-6mm.
Sarginsons – rated among the UK’s top diecasting companies in the UK – is using its new component to maximise light-weighting of vehicle car bodies – contributing to greater fuel efficiency as a result.
Managing director at Sarginsons, Anthony Evans, commented that the ability to produce the 2.5mm component is an important advance for the automotive industry.
He commented: “There’s no doubt that lightweighting vehicles is the future.
“We’ve established a strong reputation for our expertise in the field of automotive lightweighting and we’re delighted that our extensive research, new technology and sheer commitment has meant we have been able to produce this 2.5mm component.
Evans explained: “Most sandcasting engineers would have turned down the opportunity to develop a component to this thickness, questioning whether it could even be done.
“A few years ago we would probably have said the same, so we’re really pleased that through years of research and innovation we have been able to reach this milestone.”
Sarginsons is now in the process of developing a similar component that will replicate the thickness and become a high-pressure production piece.
Evans added: “Thin sandcast prototypes, and hollow section castings are becoming more and more important with each year that passes in UK automotive, and I’m proud to say that Sarginsons have the technical skills and know how to be able to offer both.”
Sarginsons employs 75 people in its Torrington Avenue foundry and has been at the forefront of aluminium diecasting for 80 years.
