Homogenization of Nuclei in Al-Nb-B Inoculant and Its Effect on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Al Alloy
WAN Jie1, LI Haotian1, LIU Shuji2, LU Hongzhou3, WANG Lisheng2, ZHANG Zhendong2, LIU Chunhai2, JIA Jianlei2, LIU Haifeng2, CHEN Yuzeng1()
1 State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China 2 China International Trust and Investment Corporation Dicastal Co. Ltd., Qinhuangdao 066011, China 3 China International Trust and Investment Corporation Metal Co. Ltd., Beijing 100004, China
Cite this article:
WAN Jie, LI Haotian, LIU Shuji, LU Hongzhou, WANG Lisheng, ZHANG Zhendong, LIU Chunhai, JIA Jianlei, LIU Haifeng, CHEN Yuzeng. Homogenization of Nuclei in Al-Nb-B Inoculant and Its Effect on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Al Alloy. Acta Metall Sin, 2025, 61(1): 117-128.
Silicon (Si)-containing aluminum (Al) alloys are highly valued in the fabrication of large-scale components with thin walls and complex geometries, such as automobile engine housings, gas turbine blades, and electrical equipment housings. These alloys are favored owing to their high fluidity, excellent filling ability, low risk of hot cracking, and excellent weldability. However, the broad solidification range of these alloys can lead to the formation of coarse primary Al dendrites and casting defects such as shrinkage porosity. To improve casting quality, inoculation is commonly carried out in practice. Numerous inoculants, such as Al-Ti, Al-B, Al-Ti-B, Al-Ti-C, and Al-Ti-B-C, have so far been developed. Among these, Al-Ti-B is widely adopted in industry owing to its high grain refinement efficiency. However, its efficiency decreases significantly when the Si content in Al alloys exceeds 5% (mass fraction), a phenomenon known as “Si poisoning”. To this end, an Al-Nb-B inoculant was developed to replace Al-Ti-B. Al-Nb-B demonstrates excellent grain refinement effect and effective resistance to Si poisoning, making it ideal for cast Al alloys with high Si contents. Typically, Al-Nb-B is fabricated using conventional casting methods with Al-Nb and Al-B intermetallic alloys as feedstocks. However, because these feedstocks have higher melting points than Al alloys, the reaction time required for the fabrication of Al-Nb-B is lengthy. This leads to the coarsening and sedimentation of nuclei in the molten Al, resulting in a non-uniform distribution in the as-cast inoculant, limiting its industrial application. To overcome this challenge, a fabrication method utilizing molten salt reactions has been proposed to homogenize the distribution of nuclei in Al-Nb-B inoculants. This approach not only improves the homogeneity of the nuclei but also reduces their average particle size from 10 μm to 1 μm. This is attributed to the relatively fast reaction rate between the molten salt and the liquid Al. As a result, the grain refinement efficiency improved significantly from 34% to 79%. Furthermore, plastic deformation aids in further homogenizing nucleus distribution. Hot extrusion is more effective than cold-rolling in this regard, showing the best results for enhancing grain refinement and antidegradation performance of the molten salt-based inoculant. The performance of this newly developed molten salt-based inoculant was verified during the fabrication of cast Al alloys ZL104 and ZL114A, which not only refines grain size by 79.2% and 78.5%, respectively but also significantly reduces casting defects. Consequently, the ductility and impact toughness of both ZL104 and ZL114A alloys improved simultaneously. This study provides a new approach to fabricating high-performance Al-Nb-B inoculants for cast Al alloys.
Fund: National Natural Science Foundation of China(52071262);National Natural Science Foundation of China(52301197);National Natural Science Foundation of China(52234009);Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(D5000240144);Qinchuangyuan “Scientist + Engineer” Team Development Program of Shaanxi Province(2022KXJ-020);Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi Province(2023-JC-QN-0421)
Corresponding Authors:
CHEN Yuzeng, professor, Tel: 13572260961, E-mail: yzchen@nwpu.edu.cn
Fig.1 Pouring schematic (a), XRD spectra (d), and OM images (b, c, e) of the smelting-based inoculant in as-cast state and OM image of Al-Nb intermediate alloy (f) (b) inoculant from the top of crucible (c) inoculant from the bottom of crucible (e) abnormal microstructure from the bottom of crucible on the right side of the yellow dotted line
Fig.2 Pouring schematic (a), XRD spectra (d), and microstructures of the molten salt-based inoculant in as-cast state (b, c, e, f) (b) OM image of inoculant from the top of crucible (c) OM image of inoculant from the bottom of crucible (e) SEM image the of inoculant (f) SEM image of the boxed area in Fig.2e
Fig.3 Schematics of different inoculant fabrication approaches (a) conventional melting approach (b) novel molten salt reaction approach
Fig.4 OM images of as-cast ZL104 alloy under bright field (a-c) and polarization modes (d-f) (a, d) without inoculant (b, e) with smelting-based inoculant (c, f) with molten salt-based inoculant
Fig.5 SEM images of the molten salt-based inoculants in different states (a) as-cast (b) hot extruded at 280 oC with an extrusion ratio of 69 (c) cold rolled with a thickness reduction of 80% (CR-80%) (d) cold rolled with a thickness reduction of 90% (CR-90%)
Fig.6 OM images of as-cast ZL104 alloys treated with the molten salt-based inoculants in CR-80% (a-c), CR-90% (d-f), and hot-extruded (g-i) states and maintained for different durations before pouring (a, d, g) 30 min (b, e, h) 60 min (c, f, i) 120 min
Fig.7 Average grain sizes of as-cast microstructure of ZL104 alloys treated with the molten salt-based inoculants in different states and maintained for different durations
Fig.8 OM images of as-cast ZL104 (a-f) and ZL114A (g-l) alloys under polarization (a, d, g, j) and bright field (b, c, e, f, h, i, k, l) modes (Red arrows indicate shrinkage porosities and blue arrows indicate eutectic Si) (a-c, g-i) without inoculant (d-f, j-l) with molten salt-based inoculant in hot-extruded state
Material
σ0.2
MPa
σb
MPa
ε
%
Ak
J
Virgin ZL104 alloy
236
273
1.9
0.82
Inoculated ZL104 alloy
240
279
2.3
1.07
Virgin ZL114A alloy
245
309
5.0
1.09
Inoculated ZL114A alloy
241
310
5.4
1.48
Table 1 Tensile and impact properties of heat-treated cast Al alloys with and without hot-extrued molten salt-based inoculant
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