The Use of Computational Thermodynamics in Lightweight Materials and Sustainable Manufacturing

Lightweight materials including aluminum, magnesium and titanium alloys and metal matrix composites are increasingly being used in the transportation and manufacturing industries to reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint. This talk presents some examples of using computational thermodynamics for lightweight material design and development. It will also summarize some of the latest innovations in sustainable casting, extrusion, sheet forming and multi-material manufacturing processes. For example, super vacuum die casting (SVDC) process is developed to produce high-integrity and thin-wall aluminum and magnesium die castings, which is seeing tremendous growth in electrical vehicle applications. Advanced solidification and precipitation models for light alloys has been developed based on computational thermodynamics and kinetics, combined with microstructure and process modeling techniques. These computational models are integrated to predict location-specific mechanical properties, based on location-specific microstructure, of solidification (casting and additive manufacturing) products.