MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF ZINC - ALUMINUM ALLOYS VERSUS STRUCTURAL AND THERMAL PARAMETERS

ALICIA E. ARES; ISAURA P. GATTI; SERGIO F. GUEIJMAN; CARLOS E. SCHVEZOV

Vancouver, Canada

Conferencia; MCWASP INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE. MODELING OF CASTING, WELDING AND ADVANCED SOLIDIFICATION PROCESSES - XII; 2009

The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society

Modeling  and  simulation  of  the  casting  process  require  accurate  material  properties;  in particular of the mechanical properties related to the grain structure (columnar, equiaxed or the transition mixed structure) and the dendrite size (primary, secondary and tertiary arm spacings).In this paper, the influence of solidification parameters on the structure is studied in Zn-Al (ZA) alloys of different concentrations between 1wt%Al to 27wt%Al. The solidification parameters in  the  directional  solidification  experiments  considered  are  the  temperature  gradient,  cooling rate and  interface velocity; and  the structure was characterized  for  type and size of grain, and secondary dendrite arm spacing.Also,  the  mechanical  properties  of  each  sample  such  as  yield  strength,  maximum  tensile strength, ultimate  tensile strength and microhardness were determined and correlated with  the structural  parameters. The  results  show  the quantitative  increase  of  the  tensile  properties  and microhardness  with  the  secondary  arm  dendrite  spacing.  The correlation between microhardness and grain size depends on the type of grains, columnar or equiaxed. The relation between grain size and secondary arm dendrite spacing is also presented and discussed.