The global manufacturing industry is under more pressure than ever to reduce product weight.

Most engineers lean toward plastics or aluminum — but have you considered magnesium? Magnesium is 30% lighter than aluminum and twice the strength at the same thickness, while achieving cost parity with aluminum at volume. It has been used for years in automotive seat frames, housings, power tools, and laptops — it is not new, it is just coming into its own with the push for lighter designs.

What makes GTI truly unique is our vast experience with magnesium manufacturing — Thixomolding, Die Casting, and CNC Machining — for a broad customer base. Greg Raleigh is one of the top magnesium manufacturing engineers on the planet. GTI will walk you through the process whether the end result is die casting, thixomolding, or machining.

Magnesium heat sinks

Thermal characteristics of magnesium are comparable to aluminum, which makes it a solid candidate for heat sink applications at significantly lower weight. GTI has produced hundreds of heat sinks in both magnesium and aluminum and can help optimize designs for both mechanical and thermal performance.

Great thermal dissipation + lower weight = a better heat sink story.

What is thixomolding?

Thixomolding is a unique manufacturing process that allows manufacturers to design highly complex, lightweight parts from magnesium alloys for medium to high volume applications. It is not a new process and has been used in automotive, consumer products, drone, and telecom industries for many years.

Thixomolding injects a magnesium alloy slurry at extremely high velocities into a mold, reducing voids. A properly designed part will have very high yields, excellent part detail, superb metallurgical structure, and tight tolerance capability compared to magnesium die casting.

The design concepts are more similar to plastic injection molding than die casting. If you are familiar with plastic injection molding you are about 80% of the way there. We recommend designing for plastic injection first, then letting GTI help optimize the final design for manufacturing.

Die Casting - Aluminum and Magnesium

Almost every design and mechanical engineer is versed in aluminum die casting. We find that engineering, program management, and procurement have different objectives and concerns and, more often than not, these are not communicated well — which creates issues. GTI's technical and commercial managers bring these functions together to educate the team on their options and help them determine a complete solution.

GTI has developed a global supplier network that includes aluminum, magnesium, and zinc die casting with machines up to 1,600 tons. We evaluate geometries, total cost of ownership, logistics, and experience to make sure the part is optimized.

If your parts benefit from magnesium die casting it is ever so important that GTI helps you through this process.

CNC Machining - Global Machine Shop Partners

GTI manages multiple precision machining programs across shops in four countries. Our customers can place orders for anything from screw machining to large machined castings with a single call or email, without having to manage relationships with four different machine shops themselves.

Each shop in our network has a niche. We match your requirements: technical, logistical, commercial, and compliance, to the right facility.

GTI engineers low cost, high yield parts.

Our design-for-manufacturing services provide optimized part design, robust tooling, and process expertise to increase yields and minimize costs. GTI will provide you with a comprehensive design review that will define specific design changes for parts, coatings, fasteners, and tools.

On average 75% of an engineered component's cost is incurred during the early phases of design. GTI works closely with program management, industrial designers, mechanical engineers, and procurement staff. We provide Advanced Manufacturing Engineering, Design Guidance, Supply Chain Development and Full Life Cycle management.

Tolerances that are tighter than needed than they need to be. Surface finish requirements that kill yield. Tooling architecture that made sense on paper but creates issues at volume. GTI's DFM reviews are built to find all of it before tooling starts.

We've worked with program managers, industrial designers, mechanical engineers, and procurement at OEMs of every size. The conversation is different at each company, but the goal is always the same: get the part right, keep the cost down, and don't let the supply chain be the reason the program is late.

We stay involved from concept through production ramp, not just at the beginning.