Rapidly Solidified Gas-Atomized Aluminum Alloys Compared with Conventionally Cast Counterparts: Implications for Cold Spray Materials Consolidation

In this work, three commercially available aluminum alloy systems (Al 2024, Al 6061, and Al 7075) were considered to explicitly capture the differences in material properties associated with a rapidly solidified, gas-atomized particulate feedstock as compared with their conventionally cast counterparts. Differences between the microstructural, thermodynamic, mechanical, and kinetic behaviors associated with gas-atomized and conventionally bulk counterparts have been tacitly assumed by the cold spray community. However, many researchers continue to utilize legacy properties from bulk materials when simulating particle impact phenomena in silico, for example. By way of recognizing the fact that bulk material properties may not serve as substitutes for gas-atomized powder property input parameters for cold spray process simulation and computation in silico, enhanced cold spray research and development will be more easily achieved. Therefore, understanding the feedstock powder characteristics for use in cold spray can lead to fine-tuning the properties of cold spray consolidations. Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, nanoindentation, microhardness, differential scanning calorimetry, elemental analysis, and cooling rate calculations were utilized. This work confirms preliminary findings that powder alloys may not be treated the same way as their bulk counterparts in so far as the enactment of heat treatment processing parameters are concerned. Specifically, vast discrepancies were found in the grain size, secondary phases, and mechanical behavior between the powder and cast versions of each alloy.

Semi-Solid Slurry Casting Using Gas Induced Semi-Solid Technique to Enhance the Microstructural Characteristics of Al-4.3Cu Alloy

Semi-solid processing of Al-4.3%Cu (A206) alloy was performed by Gas Induced Semi-Solid (GISS) process in different condition. The flow rate of argon gas, starting temperature for gas purging (the temperature of superheated-melt) and the duration of gas purging were three key process variables which were changed during this investigation. It was found that inert gas purging near liquidus, significantly, led to the microstructural modification from fully dendritic to globular structure. Thermal analysis was successfully implemented through CA-CCTA technique to understand the cause of the microstructure change during GISS process. The results showed that gas purging into the melt leads to temperature drop of the melt to its liquidus just after a few seconds from start of gas purging. In fact, copious nucleation was induced by cooling effect of inert gas bubbles. Microstructural features were characterized in semi-solid as well as on conventionally cast samples. The optimum gas purging temperature, injection time, and inert gas flow rate was determined in semi-solid processing to obtain the best globularity in the microstructure of a long freezing range alloy. However, the microstructure of the conventionally cast sample was fully dendritic with shrinkage which affects the soundness of casting products.