There are many factors that influence solidification behavior during continuous casting, e.g. include superheat, casting speed, cooling rate and holding time. However, when melt is stirred by electromagnetic force, there would be some changes in its solidification behavior compared to that of the ordinary casting process. In this study, the billets of A356 alloy with a diameter of 3 inch were fabricated with electromagnetic stirring under various conditions of superheat, casting speed and input voltage of electro magnetic stirring (EMS) device. The microstructure was also investigated under the various casting conditions and electromagnetic input voltages. When increase in input voltage, the microstructure was changed from dendritic to rosette type and finally to spheroidal. With pouring temperature, casting speed and electromagnetic input voltage were $650^{\circ}C$, 100 mm/min and 140 V, respectively, the billet with a diameter of 3 inch, which has a uniform dispersed spheroidal particles in the whole area of billet except for the surface area, was manufactured.

The experiment of hot dip interaction tests was carried out in order to study the formation behavior of interfacial reaction layer between as-received STD61 hot work tool steel and a commercial pure aluminum melt, Al-xwt.%Fe(x=0.2, 0.5, 0.8 and 1.1) alloys melt and Al-xwt.%Si(x=1.0, 4.0, 7.0 and 10.0) alloys melt, respectively. The results show that the reaction layer, over 300 ${\mu}m$ in thickness, is easily formed by the dissolution of silicon from as-received tool steel. When the iron content in the aluminum alloy is higher than 1.1 wt.%, the thickness of reaction layer decreases below 180 ${\mu}m$ by preventing iron dissolution from the tool steel. The silicon dissolved from tool steel acts as a strong promoter on the formation of reaction layer, but the alloyed silicon in molten aluminum alloys acts as an inhibitor on the formation of reaction layer.

In this study, the effects of chill layers occurred in shot sleeve on the molten metal filling were analyzed through computer simulation and the behavior of chill layers with temperature variation of shot sleeve set from 200 to $280^{\circ}C$ was also investigated. The simulation results showed the chill layers set in the in-gates during the injection process change the main filling direction and cause turbulent flow pattern, resulting in porosities inside the castings. The amount of chill layers with the increasing temperature of shot sleeve was considerably reduced. And particularly, at the setting temperature of $280^{\circ}C$ by heat control unit, the big reduction in chill layers, excellent trimmed surface and the highest densification were achieved, suggesting that as the optimal sleeve condition in diecasting, especially for the highly complex parts like valve body.

The vacuum molding process is one of the clean-foundry molding-processes that can recycle molding sands repeatedly, because molding can be accomplished by introducing vacuum only among dry molding sands in flask. The effects of molding conditions such as sand grain fineness, vacuum pressure and coating thickness on the fluidity of A356 Al alloy were studied and the results was obtained that the fluidity length was decreased as the sand grain fineness number and coating thikness were decreased and the vacuum pressure was increased. A large amount of heat removal from the molten metal resulting from the vacuum suction during the vacuum molding process was the principal cause of this decrease in fluidity.