THE NEW HEAT TREATMENT TECHNOLOGY OF A356 ALUMINIUM ALLOY PREPARED BY PTC

Abstract

Phase Transition Cooling (PTC), using the absorbed latent heat during the melting of phase transition cooling medium to cool and solidify alloys in the process of casting, is a new casting technology. Specimens of A356 casting aluminum alloy were prepared by this method in the paper. The new heat treatment process (cast and then aging directly without solid solution) of A356 alloy was performed. For comparison, the conventional T6 heat treatment (solution and then aging treatment) was performed too. The mechanical properties of A356 alloy with different heat treatments were measured by tensile strength testing methods and microstructures of the alloy with different heat treatment process were investigated by optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-rays diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) too. The results show that ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of A356 alloy with the new heat treatment process is much higher than that with conventional heat treatment while the elongations with the two heat treatment processes are very close. This is due to the grain refinement obtained after PTC processing.