ULTRAFINE PRIMARY SILICON PARTICLES IN PHOSPHORUS-MODIFIED HYPEREUTECTIC AL-SI ALLOY POWDERS PRODUCED BY SAMD METHOD

Abstract

In the present study, alloy powder batches of Al-20Si (wt. %) were generated by SAMD technique using NaCl as the solid media. The method consists of introducing and mixing a specified amount of NaCl particles (mean diameter 254 μm) in aluminum melt at the temperature of 710°C. Melt disintegration occurs in 5 min by kinetic energy transfer from a rotating impeller (1400 rpm) to the metal via the solid atomizing medium ( NaCl particles). The resulting mixture of aluminum droplets and NaCl particles are subsequently quenched in water to dissolve NaCl and solidify Al droplets to produce powder particles. In order to investigate the effect of phosphorus modification on the size and morphology of the primary Si particles, the SAMD technique was also performed to produce Al-20Si -0.015P powder particles. The resultant powders were screened through 6 different sized sieves ranging from 38 to 500 μm and different powder fractions were cold mounted, polished and studied by optical microscopy. It was concluded that for both un-modified and modified alloys, there was a decrease in the size of primary Si particles corresponding to a decrease in the powder particle size. However, the same sized phosphorus modified powders exhibited considerably finer primary Si particles in which the average size of these ultrafine Si particles was about 1.1 μm for the smallest sieved particles.