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Effects of Strontium, Magnesium Addition, Temperature Gradient, and Growth Velocity on Al–Si Eutectic Growth in a Unidirectionally-solidified Al–13 wt% Si Alloy

Hengcheng Liao1), Wanru Huang1), Qigui Wang2), Fang Jia3)   

  1. 1) School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Advanced Metallic Materials,Nanjing 211189, China
    2) Materials Technology, GM Global Powertrain Engineering, 823 Joslyn Ave., Pontiac, MI 48340, USA
    3) School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China
  • Received:2012-10-10 Revised:2012-12-20 Online:2014-02-15 Published:2014-02-14
  • Contact: H. Liao
  • Supported by:

    The authors thank Prof. Ye Pan at Southeast University for valuable discussion. This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 50771031) and GM Research Foundation (No. GM-RP-07-211).

Abstract:

Al–Si eutectic growth mechanism was investigated in a directionally-solidified Al–13 wt% Si alloy with different strontium (Sr) and magnesium (Mg) additions, growth velocities and temperature gradients. Macro- and micro-scale metallographic analyses revealed that addition level of Sr and Mg, temperature gradient and growth velocity are important factors affecting stability of solidifying Al–Si eutectic front and the final morphology of eutectic grains in the solidified Al–13 wt% Si alloys. By varying (tailoring) these factors, a variety of eutectic grain structures and morphologies such as planar front, cellular structure, a mix of cellular and columnar, or equiaxed dendrites, can be obtained. Increasing temperature gradient, reducing growth velocity, or decreasing Sr and Mg contents is beneficial to stabilizing planar growth front of eutectic grains, which is qualitatively in accordance with constitutional supercooling criterion for binary eutectic growth. In contrast, adding more Sr and Mg, increasing growth velocity, or decreasing temperature gradient produces large constitutional supercooling, leading to columnar-equiaxed transition (CET) of eutectic structure, which can be interpreted on the basis of Hunt's Model. It is also found that both solute concentration and solidification variables have significant impact not only on eutectic growth, but also on gas porosity formation.

Key words: AleSi alloy, Directional solidification, Eutectic growth, Strontium, Magnesium, Temperature gradient, Growth velocity