Isothermal coarsening of fine and spherical particles in semisolid slurry of Mg–9Al–1Zn alloy under low shear

Abstract

The semisolid slurry of Mg–9Al–1Zn (AZ91D) alloy produced by high shear can be morphologically stabilised under isothermal exposure to low shear. The fine and spherical solid particles in the semisolid slurry undergo a coarsening process under low shear in which the particle density decreases while the solid fraction, particle shape and agglomeration level remain constant. Both coarsening rate constant and exponent obtained from experiments show good agreement with the result calculated from the classical LSW theory.