Modelling assisted Innovation for the Aluminium DC Casting process

The overall goals of the project are to strengthen Hydro's, Elkem's and Aleris's market positions through the development of innovative valued added advanced products; and meet new requirements in terms of the use of recycled materials in the casthouse pr oducts. Achieving these goals requires that progress is made in products and alloy types that are notoriously difficult to cast as they are prone to the development of casting defects. The most severe of these being the presence of large scale chemical inhomogeneities, also referred to as macrosegregation (resulting in large variation in product mechanical quality), and the formation of surface cracks (reduced productivity). Increasing amounts of recycled aluminium may further enhance the tendency to fo rm these defects. There is, therefore, a need for tailoring alloy compositions, heat treatment and microstructure to meet strict recycling requirements and impurity levels as well as demands for new applications. These goals of this pre-competitive proj ect are to be achieved by further developing the state-of-the-art modelling tools Alsim and Alstruc. The planned R&D activities include the development of metallurgical modules capable of predicting macrosegregation formation, surface crack formation and providing essential solidification and heat treatment data when recycled material is employed. Emphasis will be put on implementing novel numerical strategies allowing for the speed-up of computations in order to deal with realistic 3D casting geometries, e.g., sheet ingots. The project will include the education of one PhD candidate on the topic of macrosegregation formation. International collaboration will include leading research institutes from France, The Netherlands and Switzerland.