DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH DUCTILITY ALUMINUM ALLOYS FOR DIE CASTING
Aluminum-Silicon (Al-Si) alloys are often preferred in the die casting industry due to excellent castability, high strength, corrosion resistance and low cost. Commonly, iron (Fe) is alloyed with the alloys to prevent die soldering. However, the addition of Fe in most of Al-Si alloys leads to formation of the intermetallic β-AlFeSi. The β-AlFeSi is harmful to the alloy structural integrity due to its needle-like morphology that creates stress concentration at the microscopic level. The phase presence is unfavorable to the mechanical properties and significantly reduces the elongation of the alloys. This research attempted to find viable way to control the morphology and formation of the β-AlFeSi phase.
Thermodynamic simulations were done to investigate the sequence of intermetallic formation and other phases at different alloy compositions. The analysis of solidification paths of different alloys provided the correlation between the phase formation sequence and the fraction of the β-AlFeSi phase. The analysis also identified the feasible region of alloy design for minimizing the β-AlFeSi formation. Based on the thermodynamics simulation analysis, five alloys of different compositions were designed to validate the finding of the simulation.
The tensile test results of the alloys indicated that lowering the Fe content increases the elongation of the alloy. The results also showed that elongation was reduced with the increase of Si level due to the formation of eutectic Silicon. The change of both Fe and Mn did not significantly affect the mechanical property of the alloy when the ratio of Fe to Mn was constant. Microscopic analysis showed that lowering the Fe level had effectively altered the morphology of the β-AlFeSi needle like structure. The β-AlFeSi was found to be smaller in terms of size when Fe is lower, subsequently reducing the probability of β-AlFeSi phase to be stress riser and crack initiation.
The influence of heat treatment to the mechanical property of the alloys was also studied. The mechanical result on the heat-treated samples indicated that heat treatment is a viable method to improve the elongation property of the alloy. Microscopic observations showed that the β-AlFeSi phase was broken into shorter structures over the solution heat treatment process, resulting in better elongation.
History
Degree Type
- Doctor of Philosophy
Department
- Engineering Technology
Campus location
- West Lafayette