Research Design Based on a Digital Twin for Refining the Melt of AK12 Aluminium Casting Alloy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15407/mom2026.03.060Keywords:
AK12 alloy, melt refining, digital twin, degassing, porosity, mechanical propertiesAbstract
The article presents a scientific and technical proposal for a comparative experiment aimed at assessing the effect of refining the melt of AK12 aluminium casting alloy on the structural state, porosity, density and mechanical properties of shaped castings. The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that the quality of silumin castings depends not only on the standard chemical composition but also on the metallurgical cleanliness of the melt, including hydrogen saturation, oxide films and non-metallic inclusions. To plan further full-scale heats, a digital formulation of the study is proposed. It describes four technological series: a control heat without special refining, flux treatment, argon purging, and combined flux-gas treatment with filtration. The methodology includes spectral control of chemical composition, quantitative metallography, hydrostatic density determination, fracture analysis, hardness measurement and tensile testing. The model digital twin is used as a preliminary computational tool for formulating a hypothesis, determining expected ranges of indicators and preparing a verification programme. The predicted trend shows a decrease in area porosity, an increase in relative density and an improvement in ultimate tensile strength when moving from the control series to the combined treatment scheme. It is specifically emphasised that the numerical values presented in the manuscript are synthetic digital-twin data. They must be replaced with actual heat logs, metallographic results and mechanical testing protocols before the results can be submitted as a completed experimental study.
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