Effects of Growth Rates on Directionally Solidified Microstructure of Al-Ni-Y Ternary Alloy

The directional solidification of the ternary Al alloy with composition of 2.6 at%Ni, 0.9 at%Y and 96.5 at% Al was carried out under the temperature gradient of 5 K/mm and the droping velocities of 0.5 mm/min, 1 mm/min, 5 mm/min, 10 mm/min, and 25 mm/min. The microstructure of the Al-Ni-Y ternary alloy was also analyzed by X-ray diffraction and optical microscope. The experimental results show that the microstructures of the Al-Ni-Y ternary alloy are consisted of ª-Al2, Al3Ni and Y4Ni6Al23phase when the alloy was directionally solidified in all directionally solidified rates in the experiments. No primary -Al can be found in the sample with directionally solidified rate of 0.5 mm/min. When the rates higher than 1 mm/min, the primary ª-Al can be observed. The microstructure of the directionally solidified alloy becomes finer and the primary ª-Al is smaller gradually with the increasing of growth velocities when the dropping rate of directional solidification is higher than 5 min/min. Two eutectic structures, Y4Ni6Al23andª-Al eutectic and Al3Ni and ª-Al eutectic, can be found when the dropping rate is higher than 10 mm/min.