Casting and Cooling Aluminum

Nov 05, 2013 7 Replies

From what I have read slow cooling of aluminum allows minerals to precipitate out rather than remain in a more uniform suspension and or solution when you cast aluminum. This is why a cast aluminum part is usually not considered to be as good (and certainly not as strong) as a forged part where the metal is only heated up enough to be shaped by the press.



With that thought in mind would a process to rapidly cool the mold causing the aluminum to freeze off quicker make a better quality part? Maybe not as good as a forged part, but better than a slow cooled cast part? I am not sure where I am really going with this, but there are plastics that are injected into water jacketed molds for rapid cooling and freeze off. The differences in temperature for those plastics and water at cooling temperatures are much lower than that of aluminum and water, but the potential for a steam explosion in the event of a failure is still there.


"Bob La Londe" fired this volley in news:l5bnfg$558$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Plastics (except for thermo-setting types) are elastic, and tend not to crack from stress fractures when the surface cools more quickly than the interior.

A "thick" (relative term) aluminum casting will shrink severely at the surface while the interior remains expanded by the heat.

I don't think that will work, unless you can put up with stress fractures.

Lloyd

Or you could simply heat treat the casting after it was removed from the mold.

formatting link
refers to this.

Heat treating the casting sounds like a good option, but your link just teases and taunts me.

"Oops! It's Not HERE!

We've searched everywhere, and we can't find the document you were looking for. In techno-babel, the document you requested was called /hobbies/metalworking/.../Aluminum7075.pdf

We're sorry. We called everyone we could think of to help us find it, but it's just not here.

So, we've notified the Webmaster with all the information so he can fix it. He's slow, so wait a day or so, and then try again"

Found it. Thanks. Also found:

formatting link

Saved!!

Thanks!!

One of the clearest explanations Ive ever seen.

You guys never heard of chilled permanent mold casting of aluminum?? It is a common method of producing high quality aluminum parts.

Amazing! I went back and tried to reload the reference and not a thing did I find :-(

However, a little judicious searching and I come up with:

formatting link
who apparently supply alloys for casting
formatting link
which discusses aluminum alloys in general
formatting link

And so on.

Casting aluminum alloys is apparently a complex subject and requires study. I note that high silicon is conductive to fluidity (if that is a word :-) but also makes it difficult to weld, for example :-(

Likely that if your parts can be low strength you won't encounter too many problems but if high strength is required then the opposite is going to be true.

Sorry if my previous gave the impression that it was easy.

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required