Materials Science Forum Vols. 610-613

Abstract: In order to produce AZ91 and AZ31 magnesium alloy billets semisolid continuous casting by using an inclined cooling plate was carried out. The molten magnesium alloy in an electric furnace was flowed on the inclined cooling plate and then poured in a tundish. The slurry prepared using this process was solidified by drawing a dummy bar from a water-cooled copper mold, consequently producing a billet. As a result, we could produce the magnesium alloy billets by semisolid continuous casting. Magnesium alloy billets with refined and globular primary α crystals were successfully and continuously cast by optimizing the solidification conditions. In this case, the grain size of AZ91 billets was about 55μm and that of AZ31 billets was 50μm. The AZ91 billets produced by semisolid continuous casting were employed in thixocasting experiments. The experiments revealed that thixocasting could produce the mobile phone casings with spherical primary α crystals at 858K. Moreover, we proved that the difference of shot cycle did not influence the microstructures for up to 251 shots.

Abstract: The morphology and the mass change of the AZ91D alloys matrix after pretreatment, the morphology and the phase composition of chemical conversion coatings formed by phosphate and stannate were studied using scanning electron microscope, X-ray diffraction and the mass loss method. The corrosion resistance of the coatings were studied by salt spay test and damp heat test. The results show that the phase composition of matrix before and after pretreatment is almost changeless and the mass diminishes a litter, the deep micro flaw appears near between α-Mg and β phase during acidic pickling. The phosphate chemical conversion coating is mainly composed of Mg, MgO and some amorphous phase, and the stannate conversion coating is crystal structure and mainly composed of Mg, Al12Mg17 and MgSnO3•3H2O. Results from salt spay test and damp heat test indicate that the two coatings also can provide good protection for the magnesium alloy matrix, and stannate is better than phosphate.