Experimental and numerical studies of slurry generation using a cooling slope are presented in the paper. The slope having stainless steel body has been designed and constructed to produce semisolid A356 Al alloy slurry. The pouring temperature of molten metal, slope angle of the cooling slope and slope wall temperature were varied during the experiment. A multiphase numerical model, considering liquid metal and air, has been developed to simulate the liquid metal flow along the cooling channel using an Eulerian two-phase flow approach. Solid fraction evolution of the solidifying melt is tracked at different locations of the cooling channel following Schiel's equation. The continuity, momentum and energy equations are solved considering thin wall boundary condition approach. During solidification of the melt, based on the liquid fraction and latent heat of the alloy, temperature of the alloy is modified continuously by introducing a modified temperature recovery method. Numerical simulations has been carried out for semisolid slurry formation by varying the process parameters such as angle of the cooling slope, cooling slope wall temperature and melt superheat temperature, to understand the effect of process variables on cooling slope semisolid slurry generation process such as temperature distribution, velocity distribution and solid fraction of the solidifying melt. Experimental validation performed for some chosen cases reveals good agreement with the numerical simulations.
A356 aluminium alloy has a wide applicability in the manufacturing of automotive parts. Cooling slope (CS) rheocasting process has been used in the present work to produce A356 billets having near spherical morphology of primary Al phase. Absence of dendritic primary phase, observed in case conventionally cast A356 alloy, and finer distribution of secondary eutectic Si phase within the matrix establishes the usefulness of the CS casting route. Near spherical primary phase in the rheocast alloy ensures better strength, elongation properties and structural integrity in the produced billets. The liquid melt is allowed to flow through the cooling slope after pouring at 6500C. Rapid heat exchange between the flowing melt and slope wall and the atmosphere facilitates heterogeneous nucleation of α-Al phase on the cooling slope wall. Shear driven flow of the solidifying melt is found responsible for separation of α-Al phase from the slope wall and generation of nearly spherical morphology of the primary phase in the microstructure. Grain refiner addition in the melt leads to enhance the primary α-Al percentage in the microstructure and also aids to the improvement of degree of sphericity and reduction of spheroid size. So, grain refining helps to improve the strength, elongation and fracture properties of rheocast billets further.
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