Continuous casting equipment was designed to cast the metallic uranium rods, and a thermal analysis was carried out to calculate the temperature and solidification profiles. Fluid flow and heat transfer analysis model including the effects of phase change was used to simulate the continuous casting process by finite volume method. In the design of continuous casting equipment, the casting speed, pouring temperature and cooling conditions should be considered as significant factors. In this study, the effects of casting speed, pouring temperature, and air gap between the uranium and mold were investigate. The results represented that the temperature and solidification profiles of continuous casting equipment varied with the casting speed, pouring temperature, and air gap.

The effects of modification processing on the refinement of primary Si and the wear behavior of hyper-eutectic Al-Si alloys have been mainly investigated. Refining effects of primary Si in Al-17%Si alloy was more efficient than that of B.390 alloy. Optimum condition of getting the finest primary Si microstructure was when AlCuP modifier is added into the melt at $750^{\circ}C$ and held it at $700^{\circ}C$ for 30 minutes. Wear loss in the specimens of as-cast condition decreases as the size of primary Si decreases, in the order of B.390 alloy, B.390 alloy with AlCuP addition, Al-17%Si alloy and Al-17%Si alloy with AlCuP addition. Wear loss in the aged condition of Al-17%Si alloy, B.390 alloy and B.390 alloy with AlCuP addition decreased due to the increase of compressive residual stress in the matrix by the aging treatment. While, wear loss increased in the aged specimens of Al-17%Si alloy with AlCuP addition and Hepworth addition in which compressive residual stress decreases by the aging treatment. Therefore, it is assumed that higher compressive residual stress in the matrix can reduce the wear loss in composite materials such as hyper-eutectic Al-Si alloys.

In this study, a design of experiment, Taguchi method, was applied to optimize gating system design of escalator step die casting parts. Six shape factors which affect filling sequence of melt are adopted and divided into two levels respectively. Initial feeding differences of melt which were calculated by using S/N(signal-to-noise) ratio in each condition were demonstrated with the simulation of Flow-3D software program. Variations of S/N ratio according to shape factors were obtained and the optimal condition of gating system could also be obtained. It could be found that width of gate, contact angle of gate, thickness of runner are more effective factors on the filling sequence of melt than the others in this case of escalator step die casting parts. It showed that the economical gating system and sound filling sequence of melt were obtained by using Taguchi method.

Three different white cast irons alloyed with Cr, V, Mo and W were prepared in order to study their abrasion wear behavior in as-cast and heat-treated conditions. The specimens were produced using a 15㎏-capacity high frequency induction furnace. Melts were super-heated to $1600^{\circ}C$, and poured at $1550^{\circ}C$ into Y-block pepset molds. Three combinations of the alloying elements were selected so as to obtain the different types of carbides : 3%C-10%Cr-5%Mo-5%W(alloy No. 1: $M_7C_3$ and $M_6C$), 3%C -10%V-5%Mo-5%W(alloy No. 2: MC and $M_2C$) and 3%C-17%Cr-3%V(alloy No. 3: $M_7C_3$ only). A scratching type abrasion test was carried out in the states of as-cast(AS), homogenizing(AH), air-hardening(AHF) and tempering(AHFT). First of all, the as-cast specimens were homogenized at $950^{\circ}C$ for 5h under the vacuum atmosphere. Then, they were austenitized at $1050^{\circ}C$ for 2h and followed by air-hardening in air. The air-hardened specimens were tempered at $300^{\circ}C$ for 3h. 1 ㎏ load was applied in order to contact the specimen with abrading wheel which was wound by 120 mesh SiC paper. The wear loss of the test piece(dimension: $50{\times}50{\times}5$ mm) was measured after one cycle of wear test and this procedure was repeated up to 8 cycles. In all the specimens, the abrasion wear loss was found to decrease in the order of AH, AS, AHFT and AHF states. Abrasion wear loss was lowest in the alloy No.2 and highest in the alloy No.1 except for the as-cast and homogenized condition in which the alloy No.3 showed the highest abrasion wear loss. The lowest abrasion wear loss of the alloy No.2 could be attributed to the fact that it contained primary and eutectic MC carbides, and eutectic $M_2C$ carbide with extremely high hardness. The matrix of each specimen was fully pearlitic in the as-cast state but it was transformed to martensite, tempered martensite and austenite depending upon the type of heat-treatment. From these results, it becomes clear that MC carbide is a significant phase to improve the abrasion wear resistance.

In this study, the powders of Mg-3wt%Al-1wt%Zn-1wt%MM alloy were produced under vacuum condition by the inert gas atomization and the rapidly solidified powders were consolidated by the vacuum hot extrusion. Then the structural change of powders during extrusion was investigated. The effects of misch metal addition to AZ31 on mechanical properties of extruded bars were also examined. During extrusion of the rapidly solidified powders, their dendrite structure was broken into fragments and remained as grains of 2 ${\mu}m$ size in extruded bar. The Mg-Al-Ce intermetallic compounds formed in the interdendritic regions of powders were broken finely, too. The yield stress, tensile strength and ductility obtained in as-extruded Mg-3wt%Al-1wt%Zn-1wt%MM alloy were ${\sigma}_{0.2}=325$ MPa, ${\sigma}_{T.S.}=417$ MPa and ${\varepsilon}=16.8%$. All of these improvements on mechanical properties result from the refined micostructure and second-phase dispersions.

Interfacial reaction and mechanical properties between Sn-Zn-X ternary alloys(X : 3wt.%In, 4wt.%Bi) and Cu-substrate were studied. Cu/solder joints were subjected to aging treatments for up to 50days to see interfacial reaction at $100^{\circ}C$ and then were examined changes of microstructure and interfacial compound by optical microscopy, SEM and EDS. Cu/solder joints were aged to 30days and then loaded to failure at cross head speed of 0.3 mm $min^{-1}$ to measure tensile strength. According to the results of the solderability test, additions of In and Bi in the Sn-9wt.%Zn solder improve the wetting characteristics of the alloy and lower the melting temperature. Through the EDS and XRD analysis of Cu/Sn-9wt.%Zn solder joint, it was concluded that the intermetallic compound was the ${\gamma}-Cu_5Zn_8$ phase. Cu-Zn intermetallics at Cu/solder interfaces played an important role in both the microstructure evolution and failure of solder joints. Cu/solder joint strength was decreased by aging treatment, and those phenomenon was closely related to the thickening of intermetallic layer at Cu/solder joints.

Strip casting process is a new technology that makes a near net shape thin strip directly from molten metal. With this process, a large amount of energy and casting cost could be decreased from the abbreviation of reheating and/or hot rolling process. Ductile cast iron which has spheroidal graphite in the matrix is the most commercial and industrial material, because of its supreme strength, toughness, and wear resistance etc. But it cannot be produced to the thin strip owing to difficulty in rolling of ductile cast iron. In this study, ductile cast iron strips are produced by the twin roll strip caster, with different chemical compositions of C, Si, and Mn contents. And then heat-treated, microstructures and mechanical properties are examined. The microstructures of as-cast strip are that of white cast iron which consists of the mixture of cementite and pearlite, but the equiaxed crystal zone of the pearlite or segregation zone of cementite exists in the center region of the strip thickness, which cannot be observed in the rapidly solidified metallic mold cast specimens. This structure is supposed to be formed from the thermal distribution of strip and the rolling force. Comparing with the structures of each strips after heat treatment, increasing Si content makes smaller spheroidal graphite and more compact in the matrix, furthermore the less of Mn content makes the ferrite matrix be obtained clearer and easier. As a result of the tensile test of graphitization heat-treated strips, the yield strengths are about 250 MPa, the tensile strengths are about $430{\sim}500$ MPa, and the elongations are about $10{\sim}13%$. In the case of the strip which has the smaller and more compact spheroidal graphite in the ferrite matrix, the higher tensile strength and better drawability could be obtained.

This study aims at the phase-field modeling of the phase transformation in graphitization of the cast iron. As the first step, we constructed a phase-field model including the phases with negligible solubility. Under the dilute regular solution approximation, a simplified version of the phase-field model was obtained, which can be used for the phase transformation related with the stoichiometric phases. The results from the numerical calculation of the phase-field model was in good agreement with the exact analytic solution. The compositional shift due to Gibbs-Thomson effect can be reproduced within 0.5% error in the numerical calculation. The interface velocity, whereas, in numerical calculation of phase-field model appeared to be 15% larger than that from the analytic solution. This error is due to the shift of the interface position in phase-field model from the position with ${\phi}=0.5$.