Effect of Chip Amount on Microstructural and Mechanical Properties of A356 Aluminum Casting Alloy

Abstract

Aluminum casting alloys are widely used in especially automotive, aerospace, and other industrial applications due to providing desired mechanical characteristics and their high specific strength properties. Along with the increase of application areas, the importance of recycling in aluminum alloys is also increasing. The amount of energy required for producing primary ingots is about ten times the amount of energy required for the production of recycled ingots. The large energy savings achieved by using the recycled ingots results in a significant reduction in the amount of greenhouse gas released to nature compared to primary ingot production. Production can be made by adding a certain amount of recycled ingot to the primary ingot so that the desired mechanical properties remain within the boundary conditions. In this study, by using the A356 alloy and chips with five different quantities (100% primary ingots, 30% recycled ingots + 70% primary ingots, 50% recycled ingots + 50% primary ingots, 70% recycled ingots + 30% primary ingots, 100% recycled ingots), the effect on mechanical properties has been examined and the maximum amount of chips that can be used in production has been determined. T6 heat treatment was applied to the samples obtained by the gravity casting method and the mechanical properties were compared depending on the amount of chips. Besides, microstructural examinations were carried out with optical microscopy techniques. As a result, it has been observed that while producing from primary ingots, adding 30% recycled ingot to the alloy composition improves the mechanical properties of the alloy such as yield strength and tensile strength to a certain extent. However, generally a downward pattern was observed with increasing recycled ingot amount.