Ultrasonic treatment: a clean technology that supports sustainability in casting processes

The casting process is one of the most important steps in the production and supply chain of metallic components. Certain aspects, such as a clean melt, a finely clustered microstructure, and homogeneous solidification, are the basic requirements for making high-quality components and therefore influence all subsequent production stages. Current procedures to fulfill these requirements are the use of additional chemical substrates and stirring units, as well as energy-intensive technologies for cooling and tempering the molds. The goals of this work can be summarized as the development and investigation of a new ultrasonic treatment (UST) applied during the solidification of the aluminum casting alloy A356. The main idea is to expand the well-known physical effects of UST by exploiting the possibility of influencing microstructure formation during solidification. From the viewpoint of industrial applicability, the contribution of this work is the presentation of a new simulation tool that allows for making comprehensive predictions of UST processes. The presented results confirm the huge potential of the proposed treatment for increasing strength, reducing wall thicknesses, and saving valuable resources, such as materials and energy. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.