Summary
Beside several favourable properties, like high specific strength and damping capacity, most magnesium alloys also exhibit an excellent castability and are therefore usually fabricated by high pressure die casting. Due to the high casting speed, the melt flow is non-laminar and air can be entrapped during the casting process causing porosity when the melt solidifies. The volume fraction of porosity can be up to 4%. Porosity highly influences the mechanical properties, reducing significantly the values of elongation, tensile strength and especially fatigue strength [1-5]. Additionally, no heat treatment is possible to reach the optimum mechanical properties of the material. An alternative casting technology to reduce porosity is the Thixomolding process where the material is cast in the semi-solid state.
Different methods of non-destructive testing are possible to detect and remove affected components to ensure using components with a low content of porosity. One alternative of evaluating the porosity is the computerized tomography (CT). The CT enables a 3-dimensional view of the cast component.