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INDUSTRY NEWS


Public-Private Partnership Aims to Improve Cast Aluminum FCA US LLC, Auburn Hills,


Mich., and Nemak, García, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, are combining effort with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to create lightweight pow- ertrain materials to help the automo- tive industry reach its target of 54.5 mpg by 2025. Based at DOE’s Oak Ridge


National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, Tenn., the project is part of a new initiative from DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office to develop an affordable, high-strength cast alu- minum alloy. “Te aggressive goals of these


projects compress about half a century of typical materials development into a four-year project,” said Jerry Gibbs, program manager, DOE. Tis target means engineering a


material that is 25% stronger than cur- rent alloys and more durable at higher temperatures. Te researchers are using


integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) to speed the development of new high-temper- ature aluminum alloys for automo- tive cylinder heads. ICME enables researchers to tailor new alloys at the atomic level to achieve desired properties such as strength and ease of manufacturability. “Aluminum has been in mass


scale production for more than a century, but current cast alumi- num alloys cannot withstand the temperatures required by new advanced combustion regimes,” said Amit Shyam, principal investigator, ORNL. “Our goal is to take high- temperature cast aluminum where it has never been.” ORNL is breaking new ground


by scaling ICME to run on DOE’s Titan supercomputer, the second fastest computer in the world. Us- ing Titan’s speed and parallel pro-


cessing power, ORNL researchers can predictively model new alloys and select only the best candidates for further experimentation. Tis predictive capability dramatically re- duces the time, energy, and resources devoted to casting trial alloys. Te team is also verifying the


computational models through atomic scale imaging and analytical chemistry measurements. ORNL’s scanning transmission electron microscopy and atom probe tomography allow researchers to identify and examine the location and chemistry of each atom in the alloy matrix, precipitates and the interfaces between them. ORNL and collaborators are cre- ating a database that captures their aluminum alloy materials discoveries to improve ICME capabilities and accelerate the development of new high-performance materials.


10 | MODERN CASTING December 2015


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