Introduction

    The thermo-physical and physical properties of alloys are important input for almost all types of process modelling. At low temperatures such properties can be readily measured, although it may be a time-consuming and expensive procedure to obtain all relevant properties. Experimental measurement becomes far more problematical at high temperature and especially if the liquid phase is involved. To this end it is highly desirable to calculate thermo-physical and physical properties over the whole relevant temperature range for as wide a range of alloys as possible. The present paper describes a methodology to calculate properties such as density, thermal conductivity, specific heat (Cp), solidification shrinkage etc. for Al-, Fe-, Mg-, Ni- and Ti-based multi-component alloys. A significant advantage of the current method is that properties for each phase are calculated so fine detail can be obtained; for example the density change of the liquid during the solidification, which is governed both by an intrinsic change with temperature and by the composition changes that accompany solidification.

   The property models that are described in the present paper have also been linked to the simulation of non-equilibrium solidification based on the Scheil-Gulliver (SG) model and also to an extended SG model (SGM) that accounts for fast diffusion of C and N in Fe-based alloys. Hence it is possible to directly input calculated values into casting simulation packages of all types.

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