Acta Metallurgica Sinica (English Letters) ›› 2019, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (5): 559-565.DOI: 10.1007/s40195-018-0780-y

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effect of Al on Expansion Behavior of Mg-Al Alloys During Solidification

Yi Meng1(), Jian Sun1, Lei-Gang Cao1, Yue Yang1, Hai-Tao Zhang2, Jian-Zhong Cui2   

  1. 1 School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, North China University of Technology, Beijing 100144, China
    2 Key Laboratory of Electromagnetic Processing of Materials,Ministry of Education, Northeastern University,Shenyang 110819, China
  • Received:2018-03-29 Revised:2018-05-30 Online:2019-05-10 Published:2019-05-27

Abstract:

The cooling curves and the change of contraction/expansion during solidification and cooling were tested by using a self-made device which could achieve the one-dimensional contraction instead of three-dimensional contraction of the casting. Then, the effects of Al content (0, 1.1, 3, 5, 10, 12.9, 15, 17, 19, 22, 24 and 30 wt%) on the thermal contraction/expansion of the binary Mg-Al as-cast alloys during solidification were obtained. The results showed that expanding instead of contraction was present in Mg-Al alloys with the addition of 0-30 wt% Al during solidification. The values of expansion significantly increased at first and then decreased with the increase in Al content. And the maximum expansion ratio of 0.44% (maximum expansion value: 0.841 mm) was present in the Mg-15 wt% Al alloy. Contraction instead of expansion occurred once the temperature drops to the temperature corresponding to the expansion value in total, indicating the occurrence of a continuous expansion during the solidification process in mushy zone for the Mg alloys with Al addition of 5-30 wt%. The expansion value in total consisted of two parts: the expansions occurring in the liquid-phase zone and mushy zone. The expansion in liquid zone was present in every Mg-Al alloy, and it contributed to the most proportion of the total expansion value when the Al content in Mg-Al alloy was lower than 10 wt% or higher than 22 wt%. However, the total expansion value was mainly determined by the solidification behavior in mushy zone when the Al content was among 10-22 wt% in Mg-Al alloys.

Key words: Solidification, Mg alloys, Al content, Expansion