Improvement in Mechanical Properties of A356 Tensile Test Bars Cast in a Permanent Mold by Application of a Knife Ingate

摘要

As a stand ard test-bar permanent mold, the "Stahl" Mold has been widely used in foundries to assess the properties of cast alloys. However, inferior mechanical properties are often obtained with this mold due to shrinkage-induced microporosity in the gage section. In order to improve the mechanical properties, a design modification comprising a thin knife ingate between the feeder and test-bar cavity was evaluated in this work. The new design was studied by computer-aided simulation. Simulations predicted that the knife ingate improved the metal feeding capability and reduced the shrinkage microporosity at the gage section from 3 to 1 pct. Experimental verification work has been undertaken with aluminum alloy A3 56, and the results were analyzed by a statistics theory-based factorial analysis method. The new design resulted in main effects with ultimate tensile strength (UTS) improvement of 20 MPa (relative 12 pct) and elongation increment of 2 pct (relative 45 pct) for the as-cast test bars.