Abstract
Incipient melting in a novel Al–Cu alloy was investigated. Overheating during heat treatment leads to incipient melting thereby compromising mechanical properties . Advanced microscopy and real-time imaging techniques such as high-temperature LSCM enable a direct in situ observation of incipient melting and phase transformations. Hence, isothermal analysis was carried out using LSCM at elevated temperatures to analyze incipient melting with time. The predominant phase of this alloy was Al2Cu in both blocky and eutectic morphologies. The results showed that incipient melting was accompanied by a clustering of liquid droplets followed by a complete melting of Al2Cu at approximately 548 ℃. The in situ analysis also revealed that eutectic Al–Al2Cu was found to melt prior to blocky Al2Cu. Further, localized melting was also observed to occur at a random sequence. As a result of incipient melting , the microstructure consisted of a proliferation of defects such as brittle ultra-fine eutectic clusters and porosity .
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Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to Nemak Linz and Nemak Canada for supporting this project and in-kind contributions. The authors thank Dr. Ricardo Gutierrez of Nemak Linz and Dr. Glenn Byczynski, Dr. Robert MacKay, and Dr. Anthony Lombardi of Nemak Canada for technical discussions. The authors thank the McMaster Steel Research Centre for the use of facilities and Mr. Mukesh Sharma for assistance with experiments. The authors are also thankful to Mr. Alan Machin, Mr. Eli Vandersluis, Mr. Payam Emadi, and Dr. Raja Roy for assistance with experiments and discussions. The authors are also grateful to the members of the Centre for Near-net-shape Processing of Materials for their help with casting experiments.
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Andilab, B., Ravindran, C., Dogan, N. (2020). In Situ Analysis of Incipient Melting in a Novel High Strength Al–Cu Cast Alloy Using Laser Scanning Confocal Microscopy (LSCM). In: TMS 2020 149th Annual Meeting & Exhibition Supplemental Proceedings. The Minerals, Metals & Materials Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36296-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36296-6_1
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