Light Alloys — From Traditional to Innovative Technologies

Abstract

(it accounts for about 20% of all production). Gravity die casting, a small but growing contribution derived from a vacuum die casting and squeeze casting process, represents the remaining share of manufacturing processes. Generally, during solidification in a traditional manufacturing process, volume contraction is observed. This is due to the wrong feeding system and/or gas development, which in turn generate some voids or cavities within a casting, which are in turn responsible for the presence of defects in the casting components. For these reasons, the research community and manufacturing industries are giving a high level of attention to the development of innovative production procedures. In this context, semi-solid metal processing is able to attain at least the same level of properties and performances as those obtained by conventional techniques. Progresses in materials development represent a valid support for enhancing the life of an engineering component and its reliability. In this chapter, a general overview of the actual scenario concerning the production and use of light alloys will be presented, including a short history and description of state-of-the-art techniques integrated with some results of the current research in this field carried out by the authors. Keywords: Al alloys, Mg alloys, High-pressure die casting, Low-pressure die cast‐ ing, modified squeeze casting, semi-solid metal processing, innovative rheocasting process, self-hardening Al alloy, microstructure, mechanical performance 1.