At the announcement of the Commercial Ready grant at SAGE Automation.

T-Mag joint venture targets automotive components industry

The Light Metals Flagship has partnered with three South Australian companies to market technology for casting lightweight, high-strength automotive components from magnesium alloys.

• 1 November 2007 | Updated 14 October 2011

• The partnership
• Benefits of the technology to the automotive industry

The partnership

T-Mag™ is a new casting technology that enables production of strong, lightweight magnesium alloy castings that are cost-competitive with aluminium and steel.

The T-Mag™ technology is being taken to market by a joint venture partnership between CSIRO and three South Australian companies.

The joint venture draws on the specialist engineering skills of the casting team from CSIRO’s Materials Science and Engineering Division, as well as the industry background and experience of the companies:

• Alloy Technologies International - supplies high-value cast alloy products, and is an established provider of components to the automotive industry
• FLOTEK - a special purpose machinery manufacturer with expertise in manufacture and design of foundry equipment
• SAGE Automation - a supplier of automated production systems.

A major focus for the partnership will be automotive industry applications.

The Light Metals Flagship team has developed the technology to pilot plant scale, capable of producing demonstration castings of up to 4 kilograms (kg) in weight.

The partnership will develop a larger casting machine, capable of producing commercial castings of up to 15 kg in weight.

T-Mag™, which comes from the Light Metals Flagship’s Magnesium and Aluminium Manufacturing portfolio, is the first joint venture for the Flagship.

It is one of a portfolio of Flagship manufacturing technologies aimed at transforming light metals into value-added products for the automotive industry.

The partnership received support from the Australian Government as a A$1.95 million grant awarded through the AusIndustry Commercial Ready program in August 2007.

Benefits of the technology to the automotive industry

Production of strong, lightweight car components that reduce vehicle weight, and hence fuel consumption and greenhouse emissions, is a priority for the automotive industry.

The T-Mag™ process is high-yield (yields are typically 95 per cent), uses much less alloy than existing casting processes, and offers significant savings in recycling and energy consumption.

Castings made by the T-Mag™ process are high-strength, high-integrity, and suitable for structural automotive applications.

Sand cores can be used with T-Mag™ dies, making possible the casting of complex shapes (such as engine blocks) with T-Mag.

The T-Mag™ process integrates melting and casting in one compact unit, which offers savings on use of cover gas.

Learn more about the New technology for casting magnesium automotive components.