Effects of melt spinning process parameters and wheel surface quality on production of 6060 aluminum alloy powders and ribbons

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate the surface quality of the melt spinning wheel, which was changed from smooth type to textured structure, to atomize liquid metal to form powders. The effects of melt spinning process parameters like wheel speed, gas ejection pressure, molten metal temperature, nozzle–wheel gap and wheel surface quality on the morphological and microstructural features of 6060 aluminum alloy powders and ribbons were investigated. It was observed that ribbon type material was obtained with the smooth wheel and the powder was produced with textured type. The sizes of produced ribbons with smooth surface wheel varied in the range of 30−170 µm in thickness, 4−8 mm in width, and 0.5−1 m in length. The average powder size of the powders manufactured using the textured wheel was in the range of 161−274 µm, depending on the process parameters. Increasing the wheel speed, melt temperature and decreasing gas ejection pressure, nozzle−wheel gap resulted in the decrease of both ribbon thickness and powder size. The microstructures of the powders and ribbons were the equiaxed cellular type, and the average grain sizes diminished with decreasing the ribbon thickness and powder size. The maximum cooling rates were 2.00×105 and 1.26×104 K/s for the ribbon with thickness of 30 µm and for the powder with size of 87 µm, respectively.