Casting is a substantial part of modern manufacturing and production, typically used in
the production of aluminum alloys. The high pressure die casting process is extremely
suitable for mass production. Due to the high volume, wasted time and resources during
the production cycle become more significant. Aluminum die castings require the die to
be at elevated temperatures to produce acceptable castings. When the inner surfaces of a
die are cold, the outer shell of the casting will cool too rapidly, and solidification of the
outer shell occurs before the aluminum has time to uniformly fill the cavities. Therefore,
without the die being within the proper temperature range, the castings produced will have
significant issues in porosity and casting incompleteness. Furthermore, stresses are
introduced to the casting surfaces when warm-up shots are used to raise the temperature
prior to production. In the present work, research is conducted on designing a heating
method for a casting die used in the manufacturing of an automotive transmission
intermediate plate. An electric, short wave infrared heating system is simple and effective
for the purpose. By utilizing an electric infrared heater in combination with a flat mirror
reflector, the aluminum high pressure die casting die was heated to 300 ◦C surface
temperature within 30 minutes. Further research can be done to optimize heat flux
distribution and minimize energy consumption.