Alloys are materials having metallic properties and are composed of two or more elements, at least one of which is a metal. In the case of aluminum alloys, most of them contain 90 to 96% aluminum. Aluminum alloys are divided into two categories, wrought alloys and cast alloys. Aluminum casting alloys are used in a large number of applications including automobiles, trucks, transmission of electricity, development of transportation infrastructures, and in the aerospace and other industries.Over the years, aluminum-copper (Al-Cu) cast alloys have been increasingly investigated, the reason being...

Mechanical properties are an important measure of product quality, and hardness measurements and tensile tests are commonly used to determine the mechanical properties of an alloy casting. Hardness of a material is a measure of its resistance to plastic deformation, whereas tensile properties measure the strength of a material and its ability to resist loads without failure, that is, a measure of its ductility. For samples pulled in tension at a constant rate, the tensile properties measured are the ultimate tensile strength (UTS), the yield strength (YS) at 0.2% offset strain, and the...