Wheel Hub is an important part of automobile and motorcycle parts, along with the growth of China's auto parts industry, the wheel industry has grown stronger. The wheel hub on the market can be divided into 3 types steel wheels, alloy wheels and cast iron wheels,and each have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Aluminum Alloy wheel hub

In current market, most are aluminum alloy wheel hub. Comparing with the steel wheel hub, aluminum alloy wheel hub have the following advantages:

1. Light weight, it can reduce 30%~40% than steel wheel hub.

2.Good Shock absorption performance, absorbing impact energy, which can improve the driving performance of vehicles, improve safety performance.

3.Good thermal conductivity, the rate is about 3 times of the steel wheel hub, which can reduce the working temperature of the wheel, and improve the usage life.

4.Beautiful appearance, aluminum alloy wheel structure that produced withdifferent processes to produce can be diversified, will meet all kinds of users aesthetic requirements.

Aluminum alloy wheel processing technology

Aluminum alloy wheel manufacturing process can be divided into three basic

1. Casting, most manufacturers will choose this technology,

2. Forging, most are used for High-end sports cars, high-performance cars and high-end conversion market,

3.MAT spin-on technology, whic is fist used by Enkei Japan, this technology is not widely used currently.

The following will mainly introduce 2 technology:

1. Gravity casting method, it is mainly rely on the weight of aluminum to fill the mold, is a relatively early foundry method. This method cost low, and the process is simple and efficiency high. However, it will easily appear some defects, such as Stoma. Automotive wheel manufacturing industry has rarely used the process.

2.Low-pressure casting method, it mainly use aluminum liquid into the mold under the pressure, and then solidification. With same condition, low-pressure casting will be more dense, and the strength will higher.

In current times, low-presse casting methods have become the first technology of producing wheel hub. However it costs too much time and money.

3.Forging method：it forms the wheel style through the beat, pressure, forging and other means. It will not change the liquid phase in the process, all belongs to solid changes. So its mechanical properties will be higher than casting process, it has high strength, good corrosion resistance, high precision. But the disadvantages is many processes, much higher production costs than castings. Even though it will have better perofrmance with forging process, most manufacturers also mainly use casting process, only less using forged wheels.

4. Squeeze casting method: It also known as liquid forging die, is a process that including both the advantages of forging and casting.It needs put a certain amount of the metal liquid directly into the metal cavity, and add a certain pressure on the liquid metal through the punch, and filling, forming and crystallization solidification, and produce a plastic deformation in the crystallization process. 

Advantages: Filling smooth, the metal directly become crystallization solidfication under the pressure, so the casting will not produce pores, shrinkage and other defects. And it also has dense organization, high mechanical properties than castings, and the investment will be much lower than 

low-pressure methods.

Disadvantages: Same with traditional forging products, it needs the milling process to complete the spokes.

Squeeze casting wheel, the whole process can be controlled by a computer, automoation degree is very  high, it is the main method to produce the automobile wheels currently