Toyota wins Okochi Memorial Prize awards for developing an innovative aluminium casting technology

Toyota Motor Corporation has reportedly won the Okochi Memorial Production Prize in the 66th (2019) Okochi Memorial Prize awards for developing an innovative aluminium casting technology. The technology is for improving the plant environment and product functionality.

The award has been presented in the acknowledgement of remarkable achievements by Toyota related to research and development, and application of production engineering, production technology, and production systems annually. Toyota says this is the 12^th Okochi Memorial Prize for the company.

This innovation by the Japanese automotive manufacturer is part of its initiatives to achieve the ‘Plant Zero CO2 Emissions Challenge,’ which is one of the targets in the Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050.

Toyota says that with the ongoing process of electrification of vehicles, engines should evolve through the use of technologies to achieve high thermal efficiency, which is why it has developed the aluminium casting technology. The technology is to be used for cylinder heads that affect the engine performance.

Since the technology uses inorganic material and water glass, it does not cause odours or smoke, rather enables to create complex shapes. Also, for using water glass in the technology, the action of surfactants creates a mousse-like consistency that improves the flowability of the sand, resulting in the creation of thin and complex cooling water channels in the cylinder head. This contributes significantly to the mass production of new model engines with a thermal efficiency of 41 per cent.

Going forward, Toyota will extend this technology both internally and to other companies as well, said the company.