Grain refinement effects of Al based alloys with low
titanium content produced by electrolysis
titanium content produced by electrolysis
(1. Key Laboratory of Materials Physics,
Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, China；
2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering,
Luoyang Institute of Technology,Luoyang 471039, China)
Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, China；
2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering,
Luoyang Institute of Technology,Luoyang 471039, China)
Abstract: A series of Al based alloys with low titanium contents (mass fraction) from 0.178% to 0.526% were directly produced in ordinary industrial electrolyzer. The electrolyzing results show that producing Al based alloys with titanium contents of less than 0.30% without great loss of electrolysis efficiency is possible. The quantitative analysis shows that this method has a great refining effect on transiting the coarse columnar grains in pure Al to equiaxed grains. The grain sizes decrease with the increase of titanium content and tend to a low limit at about 130μm. During the solidification, the non-equilibrium distribution of titanium leads to a great growth-restricting effect and a constitutional under-cooling zone in front of the growing liquid/solid interface.
Key words: aluminum alloy; low titanium content; electrolysis; grain refinement