2018 Volume 90 Issue 1 Pages 3-10
In this study, investigations were conducted on the grain refinement performance of cast aluminum by grain refiners containing (Fe1-xVx)3Al heterogeneous nucleation site particles, which have good lattice matching with respect to aluminum but do not coexist with aluminum. As the (Fe1-xVx)3Al particles, Fe3Al crushed particles, Fe2.7V0.3Al crushed and atomized particles and Fe2 VAl crushed and atomized particles were selected and were sintered with pure aluminum particles by spark plasma sintering (SPS) to obtain Al-10vol% (Fe1-xVx)3Al refiners. No reaction between the (Fe1-xVx)3Al and the aluminum matrix in the refiners occurred at the interface, even though the refiners were fabricated by a sintering route. Limited grain-refining performance was observed for the (Fe1-xVx)3Al particles. This is because the strong decomposition phenomenon of the (Fe1-xVx)3Al phases may occur when the refiners a added the molten aluminum.
