AMC Innovative Casting Technology (ICT) program (2017-2023)
AFS maintains its collaboration with the American Metalcasting Consortium. The consortium is a research partnership including four metalcasting associations to promote cast metals research and infrastructure improvements to benefit U.S. military and defense needs. AMC is funded through the U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Logistics Agency, managed through the Advanced Technology Institute (ATI). Under the ICT (5-year) program ended in June 2023, AFS directly managed two projects.
The first project investigated the use of intelligent manufacturing to improve casting design and process optimization. It used known casting process variables, historical data, and probabilistic modeling to successfully determine unknown process variables. This program developed a more rapid and accurate prediction of casting properties and more consistent part quality in 100-70-03 grade ductile iron components poured in a green sand process. This paper and accompanying presentation will be given at Metalcasting Congress 2025.
A second project enhanced the AFS Casting Alloy Data Search tool (CADS). Publicly available on the AFS website, CADS provides casting design engineers with a searchable database of qualified alloy properties. This new program continued building the CADS database to include new alloys and sand mold properties and now exceeds 400 pedigreed datasets. The final paper for this project will be published at Cast Expo 2026.
In addition, AFS provided technical oversight and guidance for two additional projects managed by outside investigators. One program investigated the use of ultrasonic cavitation to disperse nanoparticles into molten aluminum to produce metal-matrix composite castings for improved properties and high-temperature performance for cast aluminum components. This paper and accompanying presentation will be given at Metalcasting Congress 2025. A second project focused on producing metal-ceramic composite lattice castings for impact and penetration-resistant applications and this paper and accompanying project will also be given at Metalcasting Congress 2025.