Effects of Grain Refining on Columnar-to-Equiaxed Transition in Aluminum Alloys

Abstract

The effects of grain refining in ultra-pure aluminum, commercially pure aluminum (1050), and Al-7%Si binary alloy were investigated, using different additions of Al-10%Ti, Al-5%Ti-1%B, and Al-4%B master alloys. Thermal analysis and metallography were used to assess the variations in microstructure resulting from these additions, at solidification rates of 0.8°C/s and ~10°C/s. The results revealed that addition of Al-4%B to ultra-pure aluminum forms AlB 12 and AlB 2 which have no grain-refining effect. Without grain refiner addition, the pure aluminum microstructure exhibits a mixture of columnar and equiaxed grains. Addition of 30ppm Ti is sufficient to promote equiaxed grains at ~10°C/s but requires addition of 1000 ppm B to obtain similar results at 0.8°C/s. Increasing the Si content to 7% reduces the initial grain size of pure aluminum from 2800 μm to ~1850 μm, and further to 450 μm with ddition of ~500ppm B. In commercial aluminum, the B reacts with traces of Ti forming Al 3 Ti and TiB 2 phases which are active grain-refiners. In Al-7%Si, Ti reacts with Si forming (Al,Si) 2 Ti phase, which is a poor refining agent. This phenomenon is termed poisoning. No interaction between B and Si is observed in the commercial aluminum or Al-7%Si alloy when B is added.

A Review on Fundamentals of Grain Refining of Al-Si Cast Alloys

“…The alloy composition effect seems to be quite complex. It has been documented for the Al-Si [73][74][75][76][77][78] system that the grain size first decreases with increasing the alloying concentration and then, after reaching a minimum, the grain size increases with further additions. The minimum is obtained near the maximum solubility limit and some researchers have therefore reported the minimum in grain size at a maximum range of solidification, and therefore at the maximum time of solidification, suggesting that an alloy with a wide range of solidification grants a longer time for nucleation.…”