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StaCast Project: New Standards on Defect Classification and on Mechanical Properties of Casting Alloys

Franco Bonollo, Elena Fiorese, Giulio Timelli
University of Padova

Lars Arnberg, Anil Chandra Ramesh Adamane
NTNU University of Trondheim

StaCast (New Quality and Design Standards for Aluminium Alloys Cast Products) is a European project devoted to aluminium foundries, with the ambitious goal to set up advanced quality standards for aluminium alloy castings. The StaCast project (FP7-NMP-2012-CSA-6, Grant n. 319188) refers to University of Padova (Italy), Aalen Hochschule Technik und Wirtschaft (Germany), Trondheim Norges Universitet (Norway), Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia (Italy), Assomet Servizi (Italy), and Federation of Aluminium Consumers Europe (Brussels).
The project is aimed at developing a new classification of the castings’ structural defects, at assessing the weight according to their functionality, and at stating the limits of acceptability for the envisaged final destinations. Achieving this goal will significantly help foundries reduce the cost of non-quality, while improving the competitive edge of companies, with the addition of important advantages as for energy costs.
To do this, StaCast carried out a wide survey among European foundries, to describe

  • the main features of their production,
  • at which extent they are using EU standards,
  • their needs of information, documents and new standard tools referred to defects, mechanical properties and mechanical design of Al alloy castings.

This paper presents the main results of such survey, which involved more than 100 Companies, as well as the key-issues of the pre-normative documents which have been elaborated on Defects Classification and on Mechanical Properties of Aluminium Casting Alloys.