Abstract
Lightweighting through the application of aluminum alloys offers a tangible opportunity to accelerate the shift toward zero-emission mobility in the automotive industry. This includes the recent development and application of Silafont®-36 cast aluminum alloy which contains a low amount of iron. With its superior tensile strength and improved fatigue performance in as-cast condition, the alloy is suitable for applications ranging from shock towers to steering columns. However, the ductility of the alloy can be significantly altered by the heat-treatment condition. T5 heat treatment for Silafont®-36 alloy has been considered aiming to reduce lead time and save energy, since it involves only artificial aging without solution heat treatment like T4, T6, and T7 tempers. While lower levels of supersaturation of solute atoms in Al alloys during T5 aging prevent the formation of dense precipitates, the improvement in the ductility has been attained to some extent. It would also avoid the potential increase of porosity and excessive distortion of castings caused by quenching in the solution heat treatment. The automotive application of an alloy inevitably involves strain-controlled low-cycle fatigue behavior. The objective of this study was to evaluate the cyclic deformation behavior of a vacuum-assisted, high-pressure die-cast Silafont®-36 alloy in the T5 state in relation to its microstructure. Details on this study will be presented at the conference.