The Casting Consortium at WPI (ACRC) and NADCA developed an electronic tool; Select Al versions 1.0 and 2.0, specificallyfor aluminum die casting alloys. The tool has two basic functions: selection and prediction. The selection allows identifying existing alloys that meet specified requirements. The selection could be performed by inputting the required properties, the software finds the alloy(s) and gives properties, or by inputting the alloy composition the software gives matching (or closest matching) existing alloy(s), and properties. The prediction performs the same tasks regardless whether or not the alloy exists. The Select Al has been used in various applications in the die casting industry, and here are two examples of using the tool in optimizing and developing alloys.One wasto optimize the A380 alloy conducted at WPI and another was for high thermal conductivity alloys at a die casting company.

For optimizing the A380 type alloys, the goals were to identify two alloys. One had composition within the specified A380 alloy limits and had a minimum 20% of improvement in E (elongation) and the rest of the properties no less than those of standard A380 alloy. Another was not limited in but close to the standard A380 composition limits and had a minimum of 20% increase in YS and 12-15% improvement on the overall tensile properties over the standard A380. To quantify the alloy overall tensile properties a modified QI (Quality Index) was utilized

QI was developed by Jacob in early 1970’s for Al-Si-Mg system casting alloys and expressed as QI = UTS (MPa) + 150 ∙ log E (%).  Initially, it was preferred to use YS combining E in the QI. Generally, YS is more closely related to the alloy composition and also more important for most of the applications than UTS. The UTS and elongation are sensitive to defects, like inclusions or porosity, and are highly inter-related. Using TS in the nitial QI was because that at late 60’s, not every tensile test machine was routinely able to determine YS and the diagram finished by the machine was so tiny that it was very difficult to assess a value for YS. In fact, one of the initial purposes of developing the QI was to figure out YS from UTS and E resulting in: YS = UTS - 60 ∙ log E - 13. Combining the two equations forms QI = YS + 210 ∙ log E + 13, which we adapted for our work.