Aluminium alloy castings: the EU StaCast guide to defects classification, mechanical potential and design issues

The European Aluminium alloys foundry industry (more than 2000 Companies, mostly SMEs) has an enormous potential, associated to the increasing demand of lightweight components in various application fields, from automotive to aerospace. This potential has still to be fully exploited. European Aluminium foundry industry is now facing the challenge of transforming itself into a quality/efficiency-driven and integration-oriented sector. This target requires the achievement of several intermediate objectives, such as the development of new and advanced Standards and Technical Reports, supporting a systematic improvement in design and production of high quality and highly performing cast components. This is the scenario in which the EU financed StaCast project (FP7-NMP-2012-CSA-6, Grant n. 319188) has been carried out, with the joint effort of University of Padova (Italy), Aalen Hochschule Technik und Wirtschaft (Germany), Trondheim Norges Universitet (Norway), Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia (Italy), Assomet Servizi (Italy), and Federation of Aluminium Consumers Europe (Belgium). The acronym StaCast means “New Quality and Design Standards for Aluminium Alloys Cast Products”, and the Project has been focussed on - a public survey of EU Aluminium foundries, to understand their more relevant characteristics, particularly for what concerns quality and standardisation issues, - the development of a reliable classification of defects and imperfections in Al Alloys cast products, transferred to CEN (European Committee for Stardardisation) as an official Technical Report, - the development of a procedure for the evaluation of mechanical potential of Aluminium-based foundry alloys, transferred to CEN (European Committee for Stardardisation) as an official Technical Report, - the elaboration of engineering guidelines for the mechanical design of Al alloys castings. These four issues are substantially described in the four Chapters of this book. As coordinator of StaCast, my wish is that this book could be useful for the persons involved in Aluminium foundry industry, and my thanks are for all the colleagues which very cooperatively worked in this Project.