Contraction of aluminum alloys during and after solidification

A technique for measuring the linear contraction during and after solidification of aluminum alloys was improved and used for examination of binary and commercial alloys. The effect of experimental parameters, e.g., the length of the mold and the melt level, on the contraction was studied. The correlation between the compositional dependences of the linear contraction in the solidification range and the hot tearing susceptibility was shown for binary Al-Cu and Al-Mg alloys and used for the estimation of hot tearing susceptibility of 6XXX series alloys with copper. The linear thermal contraction coefficients for binary and commercial alloys showed complex behavior at subsolidus temperatures. The technique allows estimation of the contraction coefficient of commercial alloys in a wide range of temperatures and could be helpful for computer simulations of geometrical distortions during direct-chill (DC) casting.