Solid State Phenomena Vols. 217-218

Abstract: In the current paper, a low-Si containing aluminium alloy (1.4-2.2% Si) was used to fabricate a complex shape telecom component using Semi-Solid High-Pressure Die Cast (SSM-HPDC), process. Microstructure and fracture characteristics were investigated. The cast material exhibited microstructural inhomogeneity, in particular macrosegregation in the form of liquid surface segregation bands in addition to sub-surface pore bands and gross centre porosity. Tensile specimen were taken from the cast components. Elongation and microstructural inhomogeneity were investigated and correlated. Fracture surfaces of the tensile specimen were examined under scanning electron microscope (SEM). The study showed that both near surface liquid segregation bands and subsurface porosity strongly affected the fracture behaviour. Dominant for loss of ductility were gross centre porosity. This centre porosity was found to be a combination of trapped gas and insufficient, irregular feeding patterns.

Abstract: Aluminum segregation in zinc alloys is a well-known problem during melting and casting. In molten Zn alloys, in fact, Al tends to float on the surface of the bath because of its lower density than zinc. The same problem also occurs during casting solidification, causing chemical gradients along part thickness and soundness problems. As a consequence, the use of high aluminum content zinc alloys, such as ZA27, can be limited.In this paper the effectiveness of rheocasting method on decreasing Al-segregation phenomenon in ZA27 was investigated. The slurry was obtained by using the ultrasound technique, starting from the fully liquid down to different solid fraction percentages. The metal was then cast into a permanent steel mold. The produced samples were completely characterized by metallographic analysis (optical and scanning electron microscope), to assess the microstructure modification induced by the treatment. Hardness tests were also performed to evaluate mechanical properties. For comparison, the same tests were performed on conventionally cast samples.The analyses show that the use of a semisolid alloy increases the homogeneity of the part in terms of hardness, chemical composition and microstructure; furthermore casting’s shrinkage porosity is significantly reduced.

Abstract: Morphological evolution of a transparent model succinonitrile (SCN) material during solidification was investigated in an apparatus resembling a shearing-disc viscometer. The in situ microscopic observations showed that fragmentation decreased the average particles size, but did not result in transition of dendritic to spherical morphology. At low shear rates, the degenerated dendrites and at high shear rates, the pseudo-cluster morphology was observed. It was revealed that coarsening has the most important effect on the final morphology of solid particles. The quantitative influences of shearing rate and intensity on the size and morphology of solid crystals were also discussed based on the measurements on the microstructures.

Abstract: In this study, the effects of copper content on the microstructures and tensile properties of thixoformed Al-5Si-xCu-0.5Fe (x =1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 wt. %) were investigated. For this study, three different alloys having various amounts of copper were prepared using cooling slope casting before thixoforming. The semi-solid liquid range for the alloys were estimated using the diffrential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis. The samples were thixoformed at 40% liquid fraction. Some of these samples were treated with a T6 aging process. The thixoformed and thixoformed T6 samples were then characterized by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) as well as tensile tests. The different phases formed in the thixoformed and thixoformed T6 samples were throughly investigated.The results indicate that as copper content increases, the tensile strength also increases, which might due to precipitation hardening. The thixoformed T6 alloys attained an ultimate tensile strength (UTS) as high as 303 MPa when Cu content is 3 wt%.

Abstract: Thixoforming or semi-solid metal forming offers many advantages in comparison with casting and conventional forging. However, due to the high-melting temperature and related difficulties, there is relatively a few experimental data on the semi-solid processing of steels. Therefore, this study is subjected to study the microstructure evolution during partial remelting of 304 stainless steel which is priorely deformed in solid state by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) at room temperature. ECAP is a promising technique to induce a great homogeneous strain in bulk metals known as a new method for strain induced melt activation (SIMA) process for preparing thixoforming ingot. Simultaneously, the effect of number of passes during ECAP was also discussed in terms of the microstructure change. The results showed that the microstructure was well refined with formation of fine twins and partial martensite along with many fine equiaxed grains which in turn lead to fine and spheroidal semi-solid slurry. It can be confirmed that ECAP followed by reheating was an effective method to produce semi-solid ingot for thixoforming.

Abstract: This work evaluates the morphological evolution at the semisolid state of the Al-2wt%Si-2.5wt%Cu alloy produced by direct chill casting under electromagnetic stirring (EMS) and this same raw material enhanced by one equal channel angular pressing pass (ECAP), specially designed to produce raw material for thixoforming processes. The traditional EMS production method is compared to ECAP in order to determine if a second procedure is necessary for this particular alloy. The ECAP process emerged as a promising technique capable of imposing severe homogeneous deformation in metals, which could improve thixoforming processes. The ECAP deformation occurs in a matrix that contains two channels of the same cross-sectional area and form an angle of Φ = 90° and Φ = 120°, the process can be repeated many times allowing to control the microstructure and properties of the materials. Both raw materials, EMS and EMS + ECAP were submitted to re-heating treatment in two conditions of solid fractions, 45% and 60% at soaking times of 0s, 30s and 90s. With this procedure primary particle sizes of about 60 μm were obtained, which exhibit favourable characteristics for the thixoforming process.

Abstract: The Fe-rich Al-Si alloys have the potential to be used to make wear-resistant parts. However, there has been few work devoted to study the wear behavior of the hypereutectic Al-Si alloys with about 2% Fe (mass %). In this work, the semi-solid slurry of the alloy was prepared by an ultrasonic vibration (USV) process. The effect of Fe content on dry sliding wear properties of the alloys rheo-casted after USV treatment was investigated. The wear tests were carried out using a pin-on-disc wear tester at four different loads of 50N, 100N, 150N and 200N at a constant sliding speed of 0.75m/s. The results show that the wear rate of USV treated alloy increases almost linearly as the applied load increases from 50 N to 200N. The alloys made with semi-solid process exhibited improved wear resistance at the entire applied load range in comparison to the conventional casting alloys. At the applied load of 50N, oxidative wear is the dominant mechanism for the alloys with USV treatment. At 200N, a combination of delamination and oxidation wear is the main wear mechanism. The wear resistance of Al-17Si alloys containing 2% to 3% Fe is closely related to the morphology, size and volume fraction of Fe-bearing compounds, which can be changed by USV semi-solid process.

Abstract: An essential element for the integration of a semisolid process in the production of complex commercial components is the availability of accurate mathematical and computational tools that could describe both the rheological behavior and the material characteristics of the suspension, which are strongly affected from its internal structure and its evolution during deformation. In this study we considered the squeeze flow experiment, which is a standard method used to determine material properties of semisolid slurries, where a fixed amount of material is compressed from its topside either under constant load or constant velocity, while the bottom side remains fixed. Through high fidelity computational modeling we simulated the classical compression experiment by including the effects of thixotropy in order to demonstrate its role in determining material constants. More specifically a structural viscoplastic model based on the Bingham plastic constitutive equation is proposed. The yield stress is assumed to vary linearly with the structural parameter which follows a first-order rate equation accounting for the material structure break-down and build-up. The development of the yielded/unyielded regions in relation to material structural changes is analyzed. Furthermore, we performed also simulations, where the compression is interrupted for a short time, in order to study the material internal structure after a short relaxation time.

Abstract: The present paper focuses the modelling and the simulation of a direct thixoextrusion test achieved on C38 semi-solid steel. Many parameters related to thermal, mechanical, material features are involved but are currently unknown. Consequently to validate the modelling and the simulation, it is important to get various experimental informations during the test and to correlate them with simulated results. In a previous paper (Becker et al, 2008), the force-displacement curve, the temperature within the die, the macro and micro structure obtained for different process parameters during thixoextrusion of C38 were investigated. In this work, those results are correlated to those obtained by simulations of the processing. The simulations were performed using the commercial software Forge®. The thermal modelling is based on the heat equation and the thermal boundary conditions involving the heat losses, the thermal conduction within the semi-solid slug and the die and the plastic dissipation as heat source. The latent heat associated to the liquid-solid phase transformation is not considered here. The constitutive equation of the material is given by a multi-scale modelling based on micromechanics and homogenization techniques, labelled as micro-macro modelling (Favier et al, 2009). Friction is modelled using the usual modified Tresca equation. The parameters of the model are determined (i) using literature results and (ii) to match various experimental measurements obtained during the test and described in Becker et al (2008) such as the die temperature during the test and the load-displacement curve. Comparisons between experimental and simulated reveal the presence of complex temperature field and the presence of zones having very low viscosities. These zones contribute actively to the semi-solid material flow.

Abstract: This paper proposes and tests new Fe-2.6wt%C-2.8wt%Cr-1.8wt%Si specially designed for thixoforming processing. Samples were heated to the semisolid state at 1195 °C and held at this temperature for 0, 30, 60 and 90s, and then subjected to compression tests. Two-platen compression tests were carried out in order to determine the semisolid behavior. The holding time in the semisolid range simulates the industrial heating process that is time-controlled rather than temperature controlled. Morphological characterization pointed to an as cast microstructure composed by pearlite matrix plus chromium based carbides and nodular graphite and heated conditions composed by pearlitic matrix plus chromium based carbides without free graphite. The semisolid behavior indicated that at 1195 °C the thixoforming procedure requires a maximum stress of 2.5 MPa and maximum apparent viscosity of 4.8x10⁵ Pa.s for the 0s soaking time condition, 2.0 MPa and 4.6x10⁵ Pa.s for 30 s, 1.7 MPa and 3.7x10⁵ Pa.s for 60 s and 1.2MPa and 3.3x10⁵ Pa.s for 90 s of holding time, best condition achieved.