Heat treatment can play a major role in enhancing the performance of cast alloys. Innovation in this field continues to address the challenges both for the industrial and the research community.
Heat treatment of die-cast Al alloys is usually a critical operation due to the enlargement of gas porosities present in the castings. Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) has been used for many years to densify cast alloys and can ensure material integrity before performing subsequent heat treatment to further strengthen the alloy.
Modern HIP equipment enables the combination of HIP and Heat Treatment (High-Pressure Heat Treatment, HPHTTM) representing an interesting approach in this field achieving both densification and precipitation strengthening under pressure, in the same post-processing cycle.
