Microstructure of Zn–Pb immiscible alloys obtained by a rheomixing process

Abstract

A rheomixing process has been developed for processing immiscible metallic liquids. In this paper, a binary Zn–Pb system is used to demonstrate the rheomixing process. During the rheomixing process, liquid Zn and Pb are premixed in the miscibility gap using a propeller mixer to achieve coarse dispersion of Pb liquid droplets in Zn liquid matrix. The coarse mixture is then transferred into a twin-screw rheomixer, where it is continuously cooled down to a temperature below the monotectic temperature to form a semi-solid slurry under the intensive shear mixing action of the twin-screw rheomixer. The semi-solid slurry is finally extruded through a cylindrical extrusion die to form a continuous bar. The microstructure of immiscible alloys produced by this method is characterised by a fine dispersion of Pb particles distributed uniformly throughout a Zn matrix. The effects of rheomixing temperature and alloy composition on the resultant microstructure have been investigated. It has been found that the average size of Pb particles increases linearly with increasing rheomixing temperature and with increasing Pb concentration in the Zn–Pb alloys.