Overcoming the Barriers to Lightweighting by Enabling Low-Cost and High-Performance Structural Automotive Aluminum Castings
The major difference between the secondary and primary Al alloys is the amount of Fe in the alloys - recycling of Al alloys gradually leads to an increase in their Fe content. Thus, many secondary alloys allow up to 0.60% Fe as compared to the primary alloys that use between 0.10% and 0.20% Fe. Unfortunately, in Al alloys with higher iron content, iron-intermetallic phases form that are detrimental to the tensile properties and elongation of the Al castings. For example, in A356 alloys with iron at 0.10%, the ductility achieved is typically 8% whereas for secondary 356 alloys with iron around 0.6%, the ductility achieved is 3% or less. These intermetallic phases cannot be effectively modified with standard casting practices or standard heat treatment. Thus, new techniques need to be developed that can help secondary Al alloys overcome the mechanical property and cost barriers and are the focus of this project. We propose to lower the cost penalty and address mechanical properties issues in Al castings by a two-pronged approach: 1. Use an ultrasonics-based technique to modify the size and distribution of the deleterious intermetallics in the castings during the solidification process; and 2. Use PNNL-developed novel heat-treatment technique to lower the temperature and/or shorten the heat-treatment duration post-solidification processing.