Simulation of Stress-Strain behavior for one-dimensional aluminum samples subjected to high temperature

In order to satisfy the growing need in high quality aluminum cast parts of the automobile industries, in the last decades the foundries have been showing an increasing interest in the implementation of numerical simulations as part of their process design. As a consequence, it is possible to find in literature several programs capable of simulating the entire casting process, i.e. filling, solidification, as well as developed thermomechanical stresses. However, it is common practice in the foundry industry that the results obtained by the simulation of the cast process are "forgotten" during the analysis of the next phases, such as heat treatment and life prediction of the cast parts. Because of the lack of numerical program tools capable of predicting the stress-strain behavior of aluminum parts subjected to high temperature, it is indeed normally assumed that at the end of the thermal treatment the residual stresses are negligible. Nevertheless, in order to account for eventually "forgotten" thermal stresses, the automobile parts are usually over-designed. It is the objective of this work, that is part of the IDEAL (Integrated Development Routes for Optimized Cast Aluminium Components) project, financed by the EU in frame work 6 and born in collaboration with the automobile and foundry industries, to fill the mentioned gap. Through a systematic analysis of experimental tests, this study aims to develop a powerful predicting tool capable of capturing stress relaxation effects through an adequate description of the creep behavior of the aluminum alloys at high temperature.