Liquid Alloy Atomistic Modelling Perspective to Al Alloy Design

There are two main present drivers for Al alloyAl alloys designAlloy design from a castingCasting point of view: alloysAlloys for additive manufacturingAdditive manufacturing for which the objective is to maximise solute supersaturation and conventionally cast alloysAlloys in which the recycled content must be increased. For the former, the idea is to promote solute trapping. For the latter, a possibility is to distribute constituent particles as finely and uniformly as possible in the solidificationSolidification microstructureMicrostructure by promoting dendritic grain growth morphology. In both cases, minimising solute diffusivity in the liquid phase is desirable. Now this property is governed by atomic arrangement, that is, short- and medium-range order in the liquid, in contrast with the crystalline order of fcc-Al. The present paper aims at giving an overview of this scientific issue, with a focus on the results obtained by Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics modellingModelling of liquid Al–Mg, Al–Si and Al–Mg-Si alloysAlloys.