The application of numerical and analytical approaches for the determination of thermophysical properties of Al–Si–Cu–Mg alloys

Abstract

Thermophysical properties are very important to simulate the behavior of materials. Computer simulations are low cost as compared to what is needed for physical simulations, as far as it normally requires only a computer, a model and a computer language. However, the accuracy of numerical simulations depends on the quality of the thermophysical properties used in the prediction of physical phenomena, such as fluid flow, heat transfer, alloy solidification and solid-state phase transformations. The thermophysical properties for pure metals are widely available in the literature; nevertheless, for multicomponent metallic alloys, this is not the case. In this paper, a novel definition of non-equilibrium Gibbs–Thomson coefficient is presented, and thermodynamics calculations are carried out based on analytical and numerical approaches for the prediction of: liquidus and eutectic temperatures, equilibrium and non-equilibrium latent heats of fusion, solid–liquid surface tensions, solid and liquid densities, equilibrium and non-equilibrium Gibbs–Thomson coefficients, viscosity and surface tension as a function of temperature of quaternary Al–Si–Cu–Mg alloys.