QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy
Ten, a number always reserved for describing the best. That is the way we feel about Alcoa’s next generation of aluminum mold material, QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy. Aluminum has long been accepted as a mold making material for plastic injection and blow form molds. Now with Alcoa’s QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy, mold designers can expand their design options and take advantage of aluminum’s unrivaled thermal and machining properties.
Improved Alloy Composition
QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy represents Alcoa’s latest proprietary alloy. Developed for its outstanding thick section strength characteristics, QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy’s high purity composition and quench insensitive microstructure allows minimal drop-off in strength from 2”-24” section thicknesses.
- Advanced Alloy Design – High purity aluminum is alloyed with tightly controlled measures of alloying elements resulting in a quench insensitive microstructure. This provides excellent machinability with consistent through thickness hardness critical for holding a sharp edge along the parting line.
- Master Processing Techniques – Equipped with the largest forging presses in the world, Alcoa is capable of forging QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy in sizes never before available as a wrought product. Block thicknesses up to 24” offer the strength and hardness consistent with rolled plate.
Rolled QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy is available in gauge ranges of 2” to 6” and mechanically stretched to assure low residual stress in the final product.
- Core-Tuff™ Technology – The combination of Alcoa’s advanced alloy design and forging techniques is what differentiates QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy Forged Mold Block from other aluminum alloys. Core-Tuff™ gives QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy the strength where it matters, in the middle of the block. How it is differentiate from P20 steel is it offers the thermal conductivity of aluminum with the strength required for production tooling.
Superior Machining Performance – Saves Time and Money
QC-10® is a high strength, machinable alloy. For rough milling, QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy outperformed P20 steel allowing cutting speeds up to 10x’s faster. Cutting tests also demonstrate that a better surface finish was achieved when milling QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy than P20 steel for the same cutting conditions in both rough and finish milling. Even at higher material removal rates, QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy had better tool life performance than P20.
Outstanding Thermal Management
QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy has 5x’s better heat transfer than P20 steel. Aluminum’s ability to take on as well as give up heat allows plastic molders to run their machinery much more efficiently. Aluminum's ability to manage temperature evenly across the surface of a mold completely eliminates hot spots resulting in better formed plastic parts with less residual stress.
Consider QC-10® Aluminum Mold Alloy for your next injection mold and realize that it is truly Better in Every Way.
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