Research of Hybrid Aluminium Castings with the Use of Porous Cores

Abstract

The paper focuses on the research of hybrid aluminium castings produced by overcasting technology. This is an advanced technology for ensuring the lightness of castings by using the principle of overcasting a core with a porous cellular structure produced by foaming. Process parameters in the foaming phase of the material have a great influence on the resulting porous structure. The article focuses on controlling the influence of pressure during the foaming process on the resulting porosity and evaluating by X-ray tomograph and measuring the relative density. Variants using an initial pressure of 0.3 MPa appear to be the most satisfactory. The challenge of this technology is to ensure adequate bonding of the metals at the interface between the porous core and the solidified metal without penetrating the coating layer. For this reason, the surface treatment of foamed cores with various etchants has been proposed to disrupt the oxide layer on their surface. Macrographs of the uncoated sample and samples etched with 0.5% HF and 10% H3PO4 demonstrated the need for core surface treatment to prevent liquid metal penetration. EDX analysis confirmed the presence of AlPO4 at the core/casting interface in the treated sample.

Keywords

• hybrid castings
• aluminium foams
• porous materials
• lightweighting