Abstract

This chapter presents the potential of the cooling curve analysis to characterize the solidification path of the cast hypoeutectic series of Al-Si-Cu alloys and to quantify their feeding regions. The aim of this work is to examine how variations in the chemical composition of Si (5, 7 and 9 wt.%) and Cu (from 0 to 4 wt.%) might affect the characteristic solidification temperatures, their corresponding fraction solid, and feeding regions of investigated alloys. These parameters collected from the cooling curve analysis can be used for better understanding of the solidification paths of Al-Si-Cu alloys and could easily be incorporated into existing simulation software packages to improve their accuracy.

Keywords: aluminum alloys, thermal analysis, cooling curves, fraction solid, feeding
