13th International Conference on Aluminum Alloys (ICAA13)

Edited by: Hasso Weiland, Anthony D. Rollett, William A. Cassada

TMS (The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society), 2012

THE EFFECT OF ALLOYING ELEMENTS ON THERMAL

CONDUCTIVITY AND CASTING CHARACTERISTIC IN HIGH
PRESSURE DIE CASTING OF ALUMINUM ALLOY

Cheol-Woo Kim, Jae-Ik Cho, Se-Weon Choi, Young-Chan Kim, Chang-Seog Kang

Korea Institute of Industrial Technology

1110-9 Oryong-dong, Buk-gu, Gwangju 500-480, Rep. of Korea

Keywords: Thermal conductivity, Heat sink, Radiation of heat, Die-casting

Abstract

Recently, demand of aluminum alloys for use in high thermal conductivity application is
increases but the most aluminum die casting alloys exhibit very lower thermal properties because
of their high concentrations of alloying elements. However, those alloying elements are essential
to obtain sufficient fluidity and mechanical strength. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to
analyze the effect of alloying elements in die casting alloys, Si, Cu, Mg, Fe and Mn, in thermal
conductivity, die casting characteristics and mechanical properties and find out the appropriate
amount of each alloying element for development of heat sink component. The results showed
that Mn had the most deleterious effect in thermal conductivity and Si and Fe contents were
important to improve strength and limit casting defects, such as hot tearing and die soldering.
The alloy with 0.2~1.0wt%Cu, 0.3~0.6wt%Fe and 1.0~2.0wt%Si showed very good combination
of high thermal conductivity and good casting characteristics.

Introduction

Pure aluminum (commercial purity, 99.7%) and low alloy aluminum are generally used for the
heat sink components because of their high thermal conductivity. However, they are not suitable
for high pressure die casting (HPDC) process due to their low in casting characteristics and
mechanical properties. As a result, high thermal conductive and complex shaped components
cannot be easily produced by using HPDC. Besides, one of the most widely used die casting
alloy, ADC12, has excellent casting characteristics, such as fluidity, die soldering resistance etc,
and mechanical properties but the alloy itself has very low thermal conductivity, only 99W/mÂK
(less than 50% compare to pure Al).
Therefore, development of alloy system with high in thermal properties and die castable is
necessary. Also, the alloy needs to have sufficient mechanical properties to minimize
deformation after die casting.
Control of the alloying elements and their amount is important factors to have an alloy system
for heat sink component. The more aluminum chemical contents in alloy system, the higher
thermal conductivity could be resulted. Therefore, the total amount of alloying elements was
quite limited.
In this study, two major alloying elements, Fe contents for die soldering resistance and Si
contents for casting characteristics were considered [1, 2]. Also, the effects of Mg, Mn and Cu
were evaluated were for the development of alloy system.

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 Experimental Procedures

To evaluate the effect of alloying element and their amount in thermal conductivity of aluminum,
5 major alloying elements, Si, Cu, Mg, Fe, and Mn, were selected for this research. Each element
was added in pure aluminum in amount of 0.2%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.0%, and then the
specimen’s thermal conductivity were examined by using Netzsch LFA 477 equipment. .
Based on the thermal conductivity results of each element, 4 die casting alloys were designed to
have good thermal properties, as shown Table 1. The compositions were verified by using spark
emission spectrometer, and deviation of spectrometer was lower than 0.04% in comparison with
standard sample. The commercially pure aluminum with 99.7% purity was also examined to
compare the thermal conductivity and mechanical properties. The main concept of the
compositions listed in Table1 is to limit the total amount of alloying elements from 2.5wt% to
2.7wt%.
The aluminum melt with the composition of Table 1 was prepared in an electrical furnace. In the
melt of pure aluminum, certain amount of alloying elements were added in the form of both
master alloy (Al-25%Si, Al-50%Mg) and flux type (ALTAB; 75%Fe, 75%Mn, 75%Cu). After
melting, the melt was hold at 780°C for degassing. Ar gas bubble was injected through graphite
tube for 15 minutes. Then the melt was hold for another 20 minutes before pouring in preheated
Steel mold at100°C.

Table 1. Chemical compositions of the alloys (wt.%)

Alloy Si Fe Cu Mg Mn Al

1 0.02 0.11 0.011 0.00051 0.0005 Rem.

2 0.98 0.39 1.123 0.011 0.0025 Rem.

3 1.48 0.62 0.593 0.008 0.0033 Rem.

4 1.68 0.39 0.244 0.005 0.0027 Rem.

5 1.93 0.62 0.004 0.010 0.0022 Rem.

Fluidity test was conducted by using fluidity steel mold, a shown in Figure 1. The mold had total
six channels with thickness of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 mm, the width was 5 mm, and the length were
200mm. After pre-heating mold and sprue at 320°C, 400°C, respectively, molten metal was
poured into mold at the temperature of 750°C. The fluidity length was measured by adding the
fluidity length of each channel.

Figure 1. Schematic drawing of fluidity test mold with 6 channels

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 Results and Discussion

1. Thermal Conductivity and Tensile Properties

“Laser flash” for determining thermal diffusivity was developed by Parker [3, 4] and is currently
recognized as the preferred method for measuring the thermal diffusivity of solid materials from
room temperature to high temperatures [5]. The thermal conductivity N and thermal diffusivity D
describes the heat transport in materials and the relation between these two properties is as
follows:
N
D (1)
cp ˜ U
where c p is the specific heat capacity and U is the density. The specimen was made based on
ASTM D 1200. As mentioned, the thermal diffusivity, specific heat capacity and density was
measured by Netzsch LFA 477 equipment. Thermal conductivity (N) was calculated using a
thermal diffusivity, specific heat capacity and density.
Figure 2 shows the result of analysis that effect of alloy elements Si, Cu, Mg, Fe, and Mn on
thermal conductivity of aluminum. Density measurement result revealed that density increases as
the alloying elements were added except Mg and Si. Examination result of thermal diffusivity
exhibited that thermal emission also decreases as the amount of Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn and Si increases.
Note that effect Mn addition on the thermal emission was quite larger than other elements. As a
result, the developing alloy needs to have very limited Mn content, maybe in impurity level, and
control rest of the elements as low as possible because of the fact that gradual decreased thermal
properties were quite evident with increased amount of alloying elements. Because of the fact
that Si increases fluidity of aluminum, Fe deceases die soldering tendency, and Cu and Mg
increase the strength of aluminum, certain amount of each element is still necessary for the alloys
die castable. Therefore, the alloys shown in Table 1 were experimentally examined their thermal
properties and casting characteristics.

2.76 0.90 120

(a) Cu Fe Mg (b) Cu Fe Mg
Thermal Diffusivity (mm2/s)

(c) Cu Fe Mg
2.74 Mn Si 0.89 Mn Si Mn Si
100
Density (g/cm3)

Cp (J/g/K)

2.72 0.88 80

2.70 0.87 60

2.68 0.86 40

2.66 0.85 20
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
Content (wt%) Content (wt%) Content (wt%)
270
Thermal Conductivity (W/mk)

(d) Cu Fe Mg
240
Mn Si
210
180
150
120
90
60
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
Content (wt%)

Figure 2. Results of analysis that effect of alloy elements Si, Cu, Mg, Fe, Mn on thermal
properties; (a) Density, (b) Specific heat, (c) Thermal diffusivity, (d) Thermal conductivity
239
Figure 3 exhibits the result of thermal properties of the alloys in Table 1. By controlling the total
amounts of the alloying elements, from 2.3 to 2.7 wt% without Mn and Mg, more than 80% of
thermal conductivity compare to the pure aluminum, 225.3 W/mÂK, was achieved, even though
thermal conductivity showed tendency to decline as the amount of added elements increase.
Tensile test was conducted by following the ASTM E8M standard. Parallel portion of the tensile
specimen, gauge length and thickness were 32 mm, 20mm, and 3mm, respectively. Strain
velocity of 2 mm/min was used for the experiment.
The ultimate tensile strength of the alloys are in the range of 130~152MPa which is about 2.5
times more than pure aluminum, 58MPa. Note that up to 2.0wt% of each element and total of
2.3~2.7wt% of alloying elements were not significantly affected the tensile properties of
aluminum.

270

Thermal Conductivity(W/(mk)
100
Thermal Diffusivity(mm2/s)

2.80 1.1
(b)
(a) 2.78 240 225.3
2.76
90 1.0
2.74 Spec. Heat (J/g/K) 210
181.6 185.7 185.7
Density (g/cm3)

2.72
180 172.7
80 2.70 0.9
2.68
150
2.66
70 0.8
Diffusivity 2.64 120
Density 2.62
Cp
60 2.60 0.7 90
No. 1 No. 2 No. 3 No. 4 No. 5 No. 1 No. 2 No. 3 No. 4 No. 5

Figure 3. Graphical representation of the thermal properties for five alloy systems; (a) Thermal
Diffusivity, Density and Specific heat, (b) Thermal Conductivity
300 30
No. 1 No. 2
No. 3 No. 4
250 No. 5
25
Elongation (%)
Strength (MPa)

200 20

150 15

100 10

50 5

0 0
UTS EL
Figure 4. Graphical representation of the tensile strength and elongation of 5 alloys studied

2. Casting Characteristics and Die Casting

Generally, it is well known that Cu reduces castability and feeding characteristic [6] and Si
improves fluidity caused by heat of fusion [7]. As shown in Figure 5, fluidity was evidently
influenced by the increased amount of Si, from 1.0~2.0wt%. By comparison with the result of
fluidity length with ADC12 alloy which is one of the most widely used die-casting alloy, the
fluidity of the alloys studied showed only about 55%. Therefore, careful consider of die casting
conditions, such as melt temperature, die temperature, injection speed, and slow/fast injection
transition point, is necessary to have high integrity die casting heat sink components.

240
 210 1000
Channel1 Channel2
180 Channel3 Channel4 (a) (b) 805.6
800
Flow Length(mm)
Channel5 Channel6

Flow Length(mm)
150
120 600
466.2 466.7
405.2
90 400 324.3
60
200
30
0 0
No. 2 No. 3 No. 4 No. 5 ALDC12 No. 2 No. 3 No. 4 No. 5 ALDC12

Figure 5. Results of Fluidity test

Actual heat sink components for car audio and LED were tried by using the alloy developed. The
result showed that the alloy with low in Si, less than 1.5wt%, exhibited some casting defects,
such as misrun and hot tearing. Also, as expected, the low Fe alloy, less than 0.6wt%, was prone
to have die soldering defect. Die soldering becomes more severe because of the higher aluminum
contents of the alloy, higher pouring temperature, and higher injection speed due to lower
fluidity. However, the use of the alloys with Si content of more than 1.5wt% and Fe with more
than 0.6wt%, alloy 3 and 5, both car audio and LED heat sink components were successfully
fabricated.

Figure 6. Die casting heat sink components; left: car audio heat sink , right: LED heat sink

Conclusions

1. Among the alloying elements studied, Mn had the most deleterious effect in thermal
conductivity compare to Si, Fe, Mg and Cu.
2. To have high thermal conductive alloy, the alloying element contents need to be limited but
certain amount of Si and Fe are necessary to improve fluidity and reduce die soldering and hot
tearing.
3. Increased fluidity was exhibited with increased amount of Si in the studied range, 0~2.0wt%.
4. The alloy with 1.5~2.0wt%Si, and 0.6wt%Fe showed very good combination of high thermal
conductivity, as high as 185.7 W/mÂ.DQGVXIILFLHQWGLHFDVWLQJDELOLW\

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