Experimental investigation of ageing in Al-Si-Cu-Mg cast alloys

Manufacturing components in light metals is becoming fundamental as well as replacing higher density materials with aluminium alloys. However, whereas productions by forging and pressing can use well-known materials (i.e. 6000, 2000 and 7000 series), thixoforming and rheoforming just employ a limited number of foundry alloys (A356 and A357), which need T4, T5, or T6 heat treatments to improve their mechanical performances, fairly modest compared with those of wrought alloys. These properties can be increased by modifying alloy composition, i.e. adding new elements and/or differently balancing those already present, and consequently inducing different behaviours to heat treatment.