The Effect of Major Alloying Elements on the Size of Secondary Dendrite Arm Spacing in the As-Cast Al-Si-Cu Alloys: A comprehensive understanding of melt quality is of paramount importance for the control and prediction of actual casting characteristics. Among many phenomenon that occur during the solidification of castings, there are four that control structure and consequently mechanical properties: chemical composition, liquid metal treatment, cooling rate and temperature gradient. The cooling rate and alloy composition are most important among them. This paper investigates the effect of the major alloying elements (silicon and copper) of Al-Si-Cu alloys on the size of secondary dendrite arm spacing. It has been shown that both alloying elements have reasonable influence on the refinement of this solidification parameter.

The aim of this work is to give an overview of existing methods and to introduce three new methods for the determination of the Dendrite Coherency Point (DCP) for AlSi₁₀Mg alloys, as well as to compare the acquired values of DCP based on a thermal analysis and on the analysis of cooling curves working with only one thermocouple. Additionally, the impact of alloying and contaminant elements on the DCP will be also studied. The first two proposed methods employ the higher order derivatives of the cooling curves. The DCP was determined as the crossing point of the second and third derivative curves plotted versus time (method 1) or that of the temperature (method 2) with the zero line just after the maximum liquidus temperature. The third proposed method is based on the determination of the crossing point of the third solid fraction derivative curve with the zero line, corresponding to a minimum of the second derivative. A Taguchi design for the experiments was developed to study the DCP values in the AlSi₁₀Mg alloy. The DCP temperature values of the test alloys were compared with the DCP temperatures predicted by the previous methods and the influence of the major and minor alloying elements and contaminants over the DCP. The new processes obtained a correlation factor r² from 0.954 and 0.979 and a standard deviation from 1.84 to 2.6 °C. The obtained correlation values are higher or similar than those obtained using previous methods with an easier way to define the DCP, allowing for a better automation of the accuracy of DCP determination. The use of derivative curves plotted versus temperature employed in the last two proposed methods, where the test samples did not have an influence over the registration curves, is proposed to have a better accuracy than those of the previously described methods.

There is a long process to transform bauxite, a critical raw material, into a substance with the required properties of cast aluminum alloys for use in electro automotive parts. Thanks to its unique properties, aluminum has become the material of choice for clean technology manufacturers in applications such as use in the automotive industry, renewable energy, batteries, electrical systems, resource-saving packaging, energy efficient buildings and clean mobility. Restructuring of the economy, the oil crisis, air pollution and global warming are some of the factors that have moved the automotive industry towards electrification since the beginning of the 21st century. This paper aims to highlight the required properties of cast aluminum alloys applied to the production of electro automotive parts, such as their mechanical and thermophysical properties, dimensional stability, corrosion resistance, electromagnetic compatibility and crashworthiness. Furthermore, this paper discusses which of the cast aluminum–silicon alloys, as well as the heat treatments and casting processes, are most suitable.

The present work displays the potential of cooling curve analysis to characterize the solidification path of cast hypoeutectic series of Al-Si6-Cu(1−4 wt.%) and Al-Si8- Cu(1−4 wt.%) alloys. The aim of this work was to examine how variation in chemical composition of silicon and copper may affect characteristic solidification temperatures, fraction solid, and thermal freezing range of investigated alloys. Eight different Al−Si−Cu alloys (Al-Si6-Cu1, Al-Si6-Cu2, Al-Si6-Cu3, Al-Si6-Cu4, Al-Si8-Cu1, AlSi8-Cu2, Al-Si8-Cu3 and Al-Si8-Cu4) have been analyzed applying cooling curve analysis technique. Characteristic solidification temperatures have been determined using cooling curves or their corresponding first derivative curves along with ΔT curves. Fraction solid curves determined from recorded cooling curves have been used to calculate terminal freezing range and estimate crack susceptibility coefficient for each alloy. Theoretical mode for prediction of the cracking susceptibility coefficient developed by Clyne and Davies has been considered in this work. In addition, a novel mathematical model for prediction of crack susceptibility coefficient based on data collected from cooling curve analysis has been proposed.

The solidification process of a metal or alloy is accompanied by the evolution of heat the magnitude of which depends on the various phases that form during the solidification. Recorded temperature-time data can yield quantitative information ...