The Characteristics of Aluminum Casting Alloys in Metal Works

Aluminum casting alloys are lightweight and able to withstand the highest operating temperatures of all die cast alloys. One of the most significant benefits of aluminum casting alloys is that it creates lighter parts with more surface finishing options than other die cast alloys. Aluminum can also withstand the highest operating temperatures of all the die cast alloys. Moreover, cast aluminum is versatile, corrosion resistant; it retains high dimensional stability with thin walls and can be used in almost any industry.

Significant Characteristics of Aluminum Alloys

Aluminum’s strength, corrosion resistance, and heat dissipating properties offer mechanical designers significant advantages such as high operating temperatures outstanding corrosion resistance, lightweight, very good strength and hardness, good stiffness and strength-to-weight ratio, excellent EMI and RFI shielding properties, excellent thermal conductivity, high electrical conductivity, good finishing characteristics, full recyclability, and many more.

It is generally agreed that die casting with aluminum is one of the most cost-effective and sustainable ways to create metal parts. When using aluminum, you will have to choose which aluminumcasting alloys to use in the process. Aluminum castings improve automotive fuel efficiency by contributing to weight saving requirements. It is used in a broad range of networking and infrastructure equipment in the telecom and computing industries because RF filter boxes and housings require heat dissipation. In handheld devices, aluminum castings provide EMI/RFI shielding, rigidity, and durability with minimal weight. Because of aluminum’s excellent electrical performance and shielding properties, even in high-temperature environments, die cast aluminum is ideal for electronic connectors and housings.

How to recycle aluminum?

There is very little functional difference between primary (extracted or pure) and secondary (recycled) Recycling Aluminum Die Castings when it refers to die casting. Secondary aluminum alloys are derived from mixing and melting pure aluminum with other materials such as magnesium, iron, and copper. The use of pure aluminum in casting is quite rare due to the cost of extraction. The ease of use in die casting combined with lighter weight and durability make aluminum alloys a top choice for designers from nearly any industry.

Secondary aluminum is more economical to produce than primary aluminum because it only requires 5 percent as much energy to produce. Most of the energy consumption in aluminum die casting is used to heat and re-melt the metal during fabrication.

In principle, aluminum alloys strengthened with additions of scandium are very similar to traditional nickel-base superalloys, in that both are strengthened by coherent, coarsening resistant precipitates. However, other aluminum alloys contain a much lower volume fraction of precipitates and the inter-precipitate distance is much smaller than in their nickel-base counterparts. In both cases however, the coarsening resistant precipitates allow the alloys to retain their strength at high temperatures.