EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF THERMAL, TENSILE AND MICROHARDNESS PROPERTIES IN DIRECTIONAL SOLIDIFIED ZA, Zn-Ag AND ZINAG ALLOYS

ALICIA ESTHER ARES; SERGIO FABIAN GUEIJMAN; CARLOS ENRIQUE SCHVEZOV

Seattle, WA, USA

Simposio; THE EXTRACTION & PROCESSING DIVISION AND FUNDAMENTALS OF ADVANCED MATERIALS FOR ENERGY CONVERSION; 2010

The Minerals, Metals and Materilas Society

The  family  of  Zn-Al  (ZA),  Zn-Ag  and  Zn-Al-Ag  (ZINAG)  alloys  offers  high  mechanical properties,  ease  of  finishing,  the  advantage  of  low  energy  and  pollution-free  melting.  Also, present alternatives to the well developed alloy systems, such as brasses, bronzes, cast irons and aluminum alloys. The main objective of this paper is to measure thermal parameters in ZA, Zn-Ag  and  ZINAG  hypoeutectic  and  hypereutectic  alloys  directionally  solidified  which  present columnar,  equiaxed  and  columnar  to  equiaxed  transition  structures  (CET). Also,  estimate  the mechanical properties, such as microhardness and tensile parameters and correlate these with the thermal (cooling rate) and structural parameters (grain size and dendritic spacing). The different types  of  structures were  analyzed with  optical  and  scanning  electron microscopy.  The  results showed  the  influence  of  concentration,  microstructural  arrangement  and  thermal  conditions during  solidification  on  the mechanical  properties. The  results  of  the  present  investigation  are compared with previous experiments.